The Beginning of the End
by cautioningthestratosphere
Summary: [AU] When an ancient Fae artifact is stolen from the Light archives the mission to return it brings the team to the very last place they ever expected.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N**: I haven't written fan fiction in a really long time, but wanted to do this as a sort of writing exercise. For that reason a lot of the characters are original character that won't be as familiar as the ones you love. But I hope you're willing to give them a chance and, perhaps, learn to love them the way that I do. That being said; Bo, Dyson, Tamsin, Lauren, and Kenzi are all _big_ players in this story. I couldn't write it without them.

Before you begin reading there is one thing that you should know: each chapter is going to alternate on which character it follows. For example, while the first character follows an OC, the next chapter follows Bo. I hope these alternating perspectives give you a clearer picture of what is happening and allow you to learn more about the OC's and the world they inhabit.

**Disclaimer: I do not own Lost Girl, Any and all use of Michelle Lovretta's characters is not for profit and is meant solely for entertainment purposes.**

* * *

><p>Chapter One<p>

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><p>She knew these tunnels well. She'd traveled them many times before. Memorized each grey stone and the way her footsteps echoed off them: a ricochet lost in the dark. But now each step sounded different. Sounded <em>hollow <em>as they played her emotions back to her. _Love. Anger. Fear._ Fear for what was waiting for her on the other side. _Too many questions. Not enough answers._

She'd volunteered to make this trip alone. The frequency they'd picked up was small and it was located in a neutral area. And with the war going on stronger than ever there was just no sparing anyone else. She could handle this. She'd be back in a few hours. Stay safe. _No problem_.

So now she walked alone through the darkness. Caution in each step. Pretending not to be worried about what awaited her. Trying to keep a brave face when there was no one there to see it. But perhaps that was a good thing. They all thought of her as so _strong_. Especially David. And for them to see her now, so vulnerable and so afraid, they'd think they were looking at the wrong person. But they wouldn't be shocked. No. Not considering what happened last time.

* * *

><p>It'd been a routine patrol after three quiet nights in a row. There'd been word of a small disturbance in Sector 8 and she'd gone by herself to check it out. She was expecting to find the Hawk Brothers enacting their own private brand of justice. Or another property dispute between the vampires and Club Indigo. All easy enough to handle. But it wasn't small. No. It was an ambush.<p>

They'd known she'd arrive alone. They'd been expecting it. And her with only low grade weaponry because she _wasn't _expecting it. Certainly not a twelve-man onslaught. It took everything she had in her to make it back alive. And even then: _what's your definition of alive_? She was battered and bruised and had lost so much blood it was a wonder she had any left. And yet, she managed to walk – and then crawl – the ten miles to get back to the tunnels.

And now here she was again. Walking the same tunnels she'd been so sure she was going to die in. History repeating itself in her mind, over and over again. Each step of her boots on the stone echoed in her ear. And each echo reminded her to keep moving forward. She was the _strong_ one. This was easy. _No problem._

* * *

><p>The end of the tunnels was located in the dank basement to some abandoned offices. One florescent light flickered and flashed nearby. The air felt heavy and tasted of ink and paper. She stood still for a moment, her eyes closed. Listening to the silence. Feeling the electric hum of the white walls. <em>Praying<em> to whoever might be listening, asking for a safe return. And when the moment was over she moved. _Let's make this quick_. _No problem_.

The hallway was littered with paper. With printers. With fax machines. A desk chair. A filing cabinet. Everything a normal person would expect to find here. But different. _Bent. Dinged. Scuffed._ Each mark told its own story. Boot marks whispered of a chase through dark halls. A dent in the filing cabinet screamed of having a head nearly smashed straight through it. A trail of blood spoke back to her about the life she almost lost. Battles were fought here in these halls. Battles were won here. Battles were lost.

And here she stood again. Her heart pounding. Feet practically cemented to the black and white tile. Her shadow bouncing off the walls with each flicker and flash of the light above. And her toes pointed towards the locked-and-chained exit. As bad as the battle worn hallways of this basement were she knew that opening those steel doors meant welcoming darkness and fear. The damage in these halls all came from the streets on the other side.

* * *

><p>The glow of the city lights had disappeared when the war started. Nothing illuminated the streets once night fell. Nothing protected innocent people caught outside. There was just darkness, extending from the starless night sky to the black cement below. And evil hid within the shadows.<p>

She stood still in the alleyway, staring out towards the street. Looking for something. _Anything_. But there was nothing there. Just the stillness. The silence. The darkness. Same as always. This was _normal_. She felt momentary comfort. A sense of relief washed over her like the wind, but too quickly. It left her with a chill. Perhaps _this_ was her sign. But, then again, perhaps it wasn't.

She drew forward. Her steps slow but steady. The frequency that'd been picked up was less than three miles from where she was. If the night'd leave her alone she could make it in twenty minutes. But there was that echo again, drumming away in her mind and reminding her of her last solo mission. It gave her pause. She reached inside her coat and pulled out a thin black cylinder. A baton. Silver tipped. Someone looking for a fight in neutral territory? _No problem_.

* * *

><p>She traveled east, then west. Stopping whenever she heard the telltale collision of the ongoing war. Hiding behind cars. Behind dumpsters. Noiselessly peering out like a specter until all was still again. Avoidance was key to getting back safely. She knew this. It'd been repeated back to her over a dozen times before she left. Before she instinctively responded back with clear-cut sarcasm and quick wit. She'd be fine. <em>No problem<em>.

The black cement scrapped beneath her feet. Each step echoing proof of her existence around her. Letting the darkness know she was there. This might be neutral territory but the war still lurked around every corner. She'd been hearing it since she left the tunnels. Booming. Loud. There was no escaping it. She just had to keep avoiding it.

The coordinates of the frequency were now just up ahead. She paused. The air was heavy. She listened for some sign of what was to come but heard nothing but the echoes of war playing far off in the distance. Nothing to make her turn back. This was it. _Let's go_.

* * *

><p>The signal had come from somewhere inside a rundown apartment building at the edge of neutral territory. The front doors were falling off. No longer capable of barring anyone entrance. Plaster crunched beneath her feet as she moved inside. Her baton was drawn high, ready for whatever was waiting for her around the corner. <em>No problem<em>.

The first floor was vacant. Composed mainly of toppled furniture. Smashed lamps. Graffiti. Nothing significant. She moved to the second floor. More of the same. Fear caught in her throat. She was overcome with the thought that this might be another trap. And she might not get out of this one. _No_. _You got this_. _Let's go_.

Third floor. The last floor. The door stood closed at the end of the hall. She slowly moved towards it. One hand extended toward the knob. Other tightly gripping the baton. It all happened quickly from there. So quickly she didn't even feel it coming. A body behind her. A hand around her throat. A voice in her ear.

"Who are you?"


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

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><p>Most days she wished she could stay like this forever. Just lying in bed next to the woman that she loved. <em>Lauren<em>. The most beautiful woman she'd ever seen. Their limbs intertwined. Hearts beating together, completely in unison. But then the inevitable always happened.

"Bo!" Kenzi's voice preceded her entrance into Bo's bedroom. Though Bo made no effort to look up she heard Kenzi's boots making their way across the wooden floor and felt the creak and shift of the mattress as Kenzi sprung and plopped herself at the foot of the bed. "Trouble in the Fae-verse. Trick needs us at the Dal."

"Morning Kenz." Bo spoke slowly, sleep caught on her every word. She turned to look at her best friend sitting at the foot of the bed, drinking through a twisty straw. She silently laughed to herself. "What's that about Trick?"

"Hmm? Oh, yeah! Some rock or something was stolen out of the Light archives. _Big_ trouble. Trick needs us _right away_."

"What was that?" a voice came from next to Bo. She'd thought they were being quiet enough to let her continue on sleeping, ever beautiful. She guessed wrong.

"Some rock was stolen."

"_Think_ for a second Kenzi. Did Trick say the _mnemestone_ was stolen?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah. I guess that's what he said," she replied, still sucking on the straw.

"This is bad."

"Wait, what's wrong? What's this stone thingy do that's so bad?"

* * *

><p>"It's an ancient Fae artifact. It's usually given to Light Fae elders when they're dying. It allows them to relive one last memory before they pass on," Trick paused, a troubled look on his face. "But it can also be used to <em>alter<em> those same memories. To change time, basically."

"_Change time_? How does something like that even exist?" Bo asked, surprised.

A silence fell across the Dal. The urgency of the situation was evident even if Trick wasn't saying it. An artifact that could _change time_. And odds were the thief wasn't using it to win the lotto. No, it was stolen for much darker reasons than that. _Power_. With the Fae it was always about power. Who has it and who wants it. And the mnemestone could be used to tip those scales in someone else's favor. Perhaps for better. But, more than likely, for worse.

"We need to get it back. And quickly," Trick finally said.

"Of course."

* * *

><p>Of course, that was easier said than done. Every lead turned out to be a dead end. No one in the Fae universe seemed to know who had stolen the mnemestone. Was it Dark? Was it Light? Silence around every turn. It was as if the stone had simply vanished into thin air. But that simply wasn't possible so Bo, Tamsin, and Dyson continued to look. Day and Night.<p>

It was now five nights later and Bo was out chasing down yet another lead. A friend of Kenzi's had mentioned that some low-life Dark Fae thief who called himself King was in the business of collecting rare stones. So Bo went to the abandoned apartment building King supposedly occupied to ask him some questions about a certain rare mnemestone.

"M-m-mnemestone?" he stuttered. "I've never heard of it."

They were standing in what Bo was sure used to be someone's living room, but now was starting to fall apart. Springs were popping out of the couch and graffiti was sprayed everywhere. Tags on every surface. King was on the opposite side of the room, a truly terrified look in his eyes. When Bo took a step forward he took a step back. Then another, his back hitting the wall.

"Look, I swear I've never heard of it."

It was the same thing every lead had told them. _I've never heard of it_. It made Bo almost want to believe him. But he looked so scared. _Too scared_. And that made no sense. No, he knew something.

"You know, King," Bo said, stepping closer to him. "I'm not really sure I believe that." She placed her hand gently on his cheek before gliding it down to his neck. Perhaps her Succubus powers could convince him to share. "I know you want to tell me. It's okay. Go ahead."

He closed his eyes at Bo's words. He was trying to fight her powers, she knew it. But her powers were stronger than his will to keep silent. So, in the end: "No one stole it! It was never there to begin with!"

"What?"

* * *

><p>"That's impossible," Trick told her.<p>

"Is it?" Bo responded. She'd been thinking about what King had told her since she'd left him to head back to the Dal. At first it didn't make any sense. But then it made _too much_ sense. Everyone else they'd spoken to had told them they hadn't heard _any_ word of the mnemestone being stolen. Bo had thought it was odd. _Someone_ had to be lying to them. But maybe not. Maybe no one knew about the stone being stolen because it had never been placed in the archives to begin with.

"Yes, Ysabeau. I'm sure. I put the stone in the archives myself."

Silence. They both sat, frozen, staring at one another. Neither of them was sure what to say. They were coming up on the sixth day since Trick had told everyone that the mnemestone was missing and still nothing. Just dead ends and circles. And no more leads to speak of.

"So we're back to square zero, then," Kenzi piped in, breaking the tension.

"Yes, it would seem that way," Trick replied.

"We should go back to where you talked to King," Dyson said. "Talk to him again."

* * *

><p>But they were too late for King. He was dead by time they reached the apartment. His body sprawled out in the middle of the floor. Blood everywhere. Barely a face where his head used to be. The gun gripped in his right hand made it unmistakable. He'd killed himself shortly after Bo had left.<p>

"So now what?' Tamsin chimed in. She was standing in the same spot where Bo and King had been talking just an hour ago. Her back up against the same wall. An angel of death casting her long shadow over the man that once was.

"We search the apartment," Bo responded. "There has to be something here."

But an hour later it seemed as if Bo were wrong. The five of them had combed over every inch of that apartment searching for _something_. _Anything really_. They flipped over couches and pulled flimsy mattresses off of broken beds. They rummaged through every cabinet and checked for squeaky floorboards that could potentially be hiding spots. But it seemed like Kenzi was right: they were back to square zero. Or maybe not.

"Bo!" Kenzi called out.

She was standing inside the cramped bathroom at the end of the hall. Her face covered with an expression of both pure glee and utter shock. As if she had just found a room full of chocolate and tequila.

"What is it?" Bo asked.

"A Sentry 1750," Kenzi responded, not even turning towards Bo.

"A _what_?"

A safe. The illusion of a medicine cabinet. Shiny grey speckled metal and a combination lock hiding behind the mirror above the bathroom sink. A fortress, brand new. Completely out of place in its surroundings. This was what they were looking for. Bo breathed a sigh of relief.

"Enough waiting around," Tamsin said. "Let's open it up."

"Come to mama," Kenzi said. Her eyes locked on the safe. A smile spread over her lips. As if she had been waiting all her life for this moment.

* * *

><p>It was blacker than night. And covered in specks. Tiny splashes of neon green and blue and violet spread over every surface. So many specks on such a tiny stone. It was mesmerizing. It was beautiful. It was shocking. There was no way this tiny stone was hiding that much power. Enough power to end the world. But it was. Trick had confirmed it over the phone. This tiny black stone <em>was<em> the mnemestone.

"So now what?" Kenzi asked.

They were back in the main room. The five of them staring down at it sitting on top of the velvet pouch they'd found it in. _Kenzi, Dyson, Tamsin, Lauren, Bo._ Trick had told them to search for evidence it had been used. But _how_? No one knew how it worked. Not even Trick. And there was definitely nothing left inside the apartment.

"I guess we head back to the Dal," Bo said. She reached forward to grab the mnemestone and felt a sharp pain in her palm. "Ow!"

"Bo, are you okay? What happened?" Lauren stood immediately by her side.

"I think it bit me."

Bo opened her palm to look at it. She was already healing but a small pool of blood marked the center of her palm where she had tried to grab the mnemestone. And it burned worse than any cut she'd had before. She held her hand towards Lauren, momentarily forgetting that she'd dropped the mnemestone to the floor. A bright flash of neon green and blue and violet reminded her.

* * *

><p>For a moment everything was racked out of focus. The entire world stood blurry and motionless. Silence blanketed everything. Then everything started to come back around. There was a high frequency buzzing in Bo's ears. Like a sonic wave from a Siren, but without the pain.<p>

"Whoa! What the fish sticks!?" Kenzi screamed.

"Is everyone okay?" Bo asked.

The five of them stood motionless staring at each other, nodding one by one. It was five minutes before someone noticed that King's body had disappeared. And the mnemestone with it.

"What the hell just happened?" Bo asked.

"Your blood must've gotten on the stone," Tamsin responded.

Bo sighed. _Blood_. Of course, with the Fae it was almost always blood. So she had activated the mnemestone. And now? Who knows where they were. Or worse. How to get back.

* * *

><p>The world outside was pitch black. Not a single streetlight was lit. It almost seemed like they'd fallen into a ghost town. But off in the distance they could hear fighting. Nothing made any sense. But they needed to figure it out. They needed a plan. And quickly. So they split up.<p>

Tamsin and Dyson took off to see what they could find outside. Bo stayed behind with Lauren and Kenzi to search through the apartment _again_. The whole place _looked_ the same but _wasn't_. Not quite. There was more graffiti on the walls. The couch was gone. A window in the back bedroom was broken and partially boarded up. Small things that added up to _nothing._

"There's nothing here," Kenzi sighed. "Whenever _here_ is."

"Maybe Dyson and Tamsin had better luck," Lauren told her.

It was half hour later when they heard footsteps coming up the stairs. Hesitance in every step. Not Tamsin or Dyson. Someone else. Bo stood on guard waiting for the door to open. The footsteps drew closer and closer. Then scuffed backwards.

"Who are you?" Dyson's growled on the other side.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

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><p>The world outside was both familiar and unknown. The streets, the buildings were the same ones that they'd passed on the way to see King. Yet, they weren't. Windows were blown out and boarded up. Doors barely hung onto their hinges. Trash littered the pavement: a black and white ocean waving back and forth. And not a single streetlight glowed in the darkness.<p>

Dyson stood still staring at the world before him. The air smelt of death and destruction. The booms of an ongoing battle could be heard off in the distance. Clashes of swords. Screams of the hopeless. Fae. Dyson was sure.

"What is going on?" Tamsin asked beside him.

"I don't know."

Dyson stepped forward, then paused, smelling the air again. He looked to Tamsin and then turned to the right and started walking in the direction of the Dal, of Trick, of anything.

Every step proved to be more discouraging. Each street looked identical to the last. But more. More trash. More smashed windows. More death. More destruction. The battles that had seemed faint earlier were starting to get louder and louder.

As Dyson turned the next corner he paused. Before him were five men: two dead, three living. One man sat on the ground, blood on his jacket and straight fear in his eyes as he stared up at the other two looking down at him. One man wore a blue mohawk; the other had had his dark hair pulled up into a short ponytail. They both wore long black coats.

Dyson felt Tamsin lunging forward behind him but held her back. They weren't sure where they were or what was going on. They should wait for something to actually happen before intervening.

"Well, off you go then," the man with the blue mohawk said, his hand extended to the man on the ground.

Dyson sighed in relief. He turned and looked back at Tamsin, who stared back at him _furiously_.

"We should've helped. You didn't know that was going to happen!" Tamsin snapped at him.

"I felt it was smarter to wait," Dyson responded. "We don't know where we are, Tamsin. We need to be careful."

"Screw careful."

Silence. The two stared at each other. Dyson understood what Tamsin was saying. Normally, he would've gone forward to help. But everything was strange here and he felt that caution was the best course of action.

"You need to go back to where you came from," a slightly British accent came from behind them.

Dyson turned away from Tamsin towards the voice. The man with the ponytail was now standing a foot away from them, staring. His face was emotionless, neither happy nor sad nor angry.

"We were just heading that way," Dyson responded with a nod.

As the man walked away Dyson turned back to Tamsin. She mouthed "_like hell_" to him. She was ready to jump that guy for answers. Or maybe just for fun. Dyson wasn't sure which. He mouthed "_come on_" back and grabbed her arm, leading her back in the direction they'd come from.

They walked back just as silent as before. But this time Dyson could feel the anger coming off of the Valkyrie who walked beside him.

They were coming back up on the apartment when Dyson noticed a girl stalking through the shadows ahead of them, a baton held tight in one of her hands. The girl was heading right for the apartment. Dyson reached out a hand to hold Tamsin back. Another look of anger cut right through him.

"Stay here," Dyson told her. "Watch the outside in case there's others."

"And if there are, should I shake their hands and then walk away?" Tamsin asked him sarcastically.

"You should do whatever you need to do," Dyson responded, before turning and following after the girl.

* * *

><p>She was Fae. This petite, dark haired girl cautiously stalking through the halls, wielding a silver tipped baton. Dyson could smell it on her. She was definitely Fae. But Light or Dark, good or evil, he could not tell. But considering what he and Tamsin had seen outside, he wasn't willing to take the risk of finding out her intentions first.<p>

He'd grabbed her from behind moments before she'd reached the door that Kenzi, Lauren, and Bo were waiting on the other side of. He held her tight, hand wrapped around her throat. He could feel her heart suddenly race faster, then slow and steady itself in the next instant. Then came the blow to his ribs. And another straight to his jaw, knocking Dyson down to his knees.

"Who the hell are you?" the girl snapped at him.

Dyson tasted blood in his mouth. He hadn't realized quite how hard she had hit him. In fact, he had been sure this petite night stalker wasn't strong enough to do that to him. But the taste in his mouth was unmistakable and he found himself slightly impressed. The wolf smiled as he turned his head and looked up at his opponent, finally taking a good look at her.

She stood all of 5-foot-5 in front of him. Black boots and a leather jacket giving the illusion of toughness that the rest of her features betrayed. The soft creases around her lips and eyes told of a person that loved to laugh and smile, not fight. And she stood slightly slouched, revealing her lack of confidence in the abilities she clearly had. Her almond colored eyes were lit by both love and fear. And though she stared right at him, Dyson could also feel her staring right through him, into his heart and soul. It was a feeling all too familiar to him.

The door opened behind the girl but she didn't flinch or make any turn towards it. Her eyes remained locked on Dyson and his remained locked on her. There was something about her that assured Dyson that he could relax. She wasn't there to hurt them.

"Dyson? What's going on?" Bo asked.

"Just getting acquainted with one of the locals," Dyson responded.

The girl blinked and turned away. Dyson stood up and rubbed his hand on his jaw. It was sore, probably starting to bruise. He tried to remember when the last time was that he had been hit like that. Was it by Bo? Or maybe Tamsin. He couldn't remember.

"That's a hell of a right hook you got there."

Dyson watched as the girl sighed, her whole body seeming to sigh with her. She turned to look back at him, eyes locking on his yet again.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

"Looking for help," Dyson said. "We got transported here. By something called the mnemestone."

Dyson paused here. The look on the girl's face let him know that she understood what he was saying. She didn't need any more information. She sighed, looking unsure of what to say to him. Dyson watched carefully, silently as she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She seemed to be considering her next words very carefully.

"I'm Mac."

A soft smile spread across her lips. Dyson smiled back and then watched as Mac turned to look back at Bo. Her eyes betraying her and letting a lone tear fall down her cheek.

"We need to get you out of here," Mac said.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

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><p>"What the Fae is going on out there!?" Kenzie screamed.<p>

They had heard Dyson's voice in the hallway. A question: "_Who are you_?" Then there had been fighting and a response from an unfamiliar voice: "_Who the hell are you_?" This is when Bo had crossed the room and opened the door to see what was going on. But it had been five minutes already and although Kenzi couldn't hear voices anymore she also couldn't see what was going on in the hallway.

"Nothing, Kenz. Everything's alright," Bo said.

The succubus turned and looked back at Kenzi and Lauren. An attempt at a look of assurance. But Kenzi wasn't buying it. No, something was definitely up. Her Kenzi-sense told her so.

She moved past Bo and into the hallway. Dyson was standing in the dark with a hand to his jaw, a tiny trail of blood coming out of his mouth. Someone had hit him _hard_. The girl standing opposite Dyson in the hall. The other voice. Kenzi was sure.

"Who the hell are you?" Kenzi asked her, moving to stand beside Dyson.

"This is Mac," Dyson told her. "She's going to take us somewhere safe so we can figure out what's going on."

Kenzi looked at the girl. They had no clue where they were and this girl was a stranger. A stranger who had _attacked_ Dyson. But here Dyson was _trusting_ her. And, Bo, too. Kenzi hadn't heard a word of protest from her BFF. It all seemed very strange to her.

"I'll take you to the Firehouse," Mac said. "It's in a safe zone."

Kenzi opened her mouth to protest. _Firehouse_?_ Safe Zone_? _What the hell_!? But Dyson nodded to the girl. And Kenzi watched as Bo nodded, too. The decision was already made, it seemed. And the decision was to go. To trust this girl.

* * *

><p>Tamsin was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. Kenzi noticed that she looked pissed off. Like, <em>really<em> pissed off. Like, the _I want to_ _kill someone_ sort of pissed off. Then Kenzi noticed everything else around her and froze. Blackness everywhere, like Kenzi had never seen before. Not a single streetlight. Not a single person. Just the five of them and this girl.

"What sort of alternate Hel dimension did we just fall into?" she asked.

"Not Hel. 2041," the girl responded.

"2041!?" Kenzi screamed. "Please tell me that's a joke. That stone was supposed to take us to the _past_."

But it wasn't a joke. No. Kenzi could tell by the look that the girl gave her. Part _I'm not making this shit up_ and part _I'm sorry_. No, this was not a test. The five of them had gone into the _future_. For real. And the future looked like Hel.

* * *

><p>"Holy snicker doodles," Kenzi exclaimed. "I'm freaking out."<p>

Kenzi looked around at her friends, each in various stages of shock. Bo and Lauren were staring at each other wide-eyed. Tamsin was standing with her arms folded across her chest. The look in her eyes spoke for her, they said: "_What the freaking hell_!?" But Dyson looked unsurprised. He stood composed and only nodded towards the girl. As if he had been expecting that answer. As if he had suspected all along.

"Look, I'll try to explain what I can but we really need to get moving," the girl said. "It's too dangerous out here at night."

So the five of them followed this girl through the darkness. Listening as she fed them details of this new world they were walking through. It was a Fae War that they had fallen into. The Dark versus the Light. The _have's_ versus the _have not's_. It had started five years ago. No one was really sure why.

"_Honestly_," she said. "I don't even remember what happened. All I know is that I was barely eighteen and everything I knew changed overnight. There were murders in the streets. Entire family lines were erased in a matter of days. Hours even."

And there was no end in sight. Every night there was more fighting. More death. More destruction. The powerful picked off the weak and the helpless. Taking what they wanted. Killing those that got in the way. And not just the Dark, but the Light, too. It was a free-for-all Fae Brawl.

The girl said she belonged to a neutral group. A _resistance_. Not Light. Not Dark. More _Grey_. They fought the monsters in the dark. The evil hiding around every corner. Protected the hopeless. The innocent.

"But can't Trick just make this all go _poof_?" Kenzi asked.

He'd done it before. Kenzi had heard the stories. He was the Blood King. All he had to do was open his veins. Write in his book. Just like the last time. He could do it again. He could end another Fae War. Kenzi knew he could.

Or not…

* * *

><p>Dyson and the girl were frozen in front of her. Kenzi watched as they exchanged a look. Like two people who shared a secret. But they'd just met this girl. What secret could Dyson possibly share with her?<p>

"Trick's dead," Dyson said. "We're all dead."

"Wait, what?" Kenzi cried.

She didn't want to believe it. They were all dead? No way. That was just impossible. Certainly not Bo. And Trick? Trick most certainly _wasn't_ dead. But the girl nodded beside Dyson. Verifying the words that he'd just spoken. Kenzi turned to look at Bo and noticed tears in the Succubus' eyes. A lot of tears. Kenzi wasn't quite sure how long Bo had been crying but she felt as if it had been for a while. A long while, judging by how tightly she was holding onto Lauren.

Trick was dead. They were all dead. This was why there was a Fae War raging on. There was no one there to stop it from happening.

* * *

><p>The rest of the walk was made in silence. Kenzi continued to contemplate the details that the girl had shared. About the War. About Trick. About all of them. She didn't want to believe it. There was no reason to trust this girl. She could be tricking them all. But Dyson seemed to trust her. And Bo seemed to trust her. Kenzi wasn't sure why but she was starting to feel like she needed to trust this girl, too.<p>

They had stopped again. The girl, Mac, had lead them down an alley and was standing in front of two steel doors.

"We're almost there," she told them.

What "almost" really meant was that they still had to walk through the basement of an office building that looked like a hurricane had torn through it. And then climb into a large heating vent that was hidden behind some shelves. The vent came out inside of a tunnel of dark stone that was lit about as well as the world outside. And these tunnels were miles long. Like, seriously, they seemed to go on forever. Kenzi thought she was going to have a heart attack and just die in one of its dark corners. And they were a _maze_, too. So many turns that Kenzi wasn't sure which direction they were heading in. Her head was spinning trying to keep up. But then the tunnels opened up…


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

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><p>While Bo had stopped loving Dyson long ago, she still <em>trusted<em> Dyson. No matter the circumstances he had always been by her side. Trying to do the very best by her. Never asking questions. Simply deferring to her judgment. He'd fought. He'd sacrificed. All for Bo. And deep down she knew this and understood what it meant: he'd never let her down. So when Bo opened the door to the hall and saw Dyson, _hurt_ but still giving his nod of trust, she made the decision to trust the girl, too. No questions asked. Because if the roles were reversed Dyson would do the same.

She introduced herself as Mac and explained that they'd landed themselves in 2041, in the middle of a Fae War. It was then that Bo knew. Trick was dead. Dyson was dead. They were all dead. They'd have to be for a Fae War to be going on around them. The thought crushed her. The moment she'd discovered she was Fae Bo had made a promise to _always _protect her family. Dyson, Tamsin, Kenzi, Lauren, Trick. Hell, even Vex some days. But, somehow, she'd failed. And she failed in such a huge way that they were now all walking around in a place where none of them existed. She felt tears welling in her eyes.

The world around Bo was suffocating on darkness. Everything bled misery and destruction. Homes weren't homes anymore. The streets looked like no one ever walked on them. Only ran for their lives. The wind screeched and howled: the soundtrack to a sleeping child's nightmare that only got louder and louder. Her heart broke with every step. Bo felt guilty. Responsible, somehow.

Lauren squeezed her hand. Bo had forgotten that she had leaned into the blonde doctor soon after they'd stepped out into the street. And Lauren had held onto her. In that moment she had become the strong one, while Bo had become a puddle of emotions wrapped up in her arms. She was thankful for that now. Each step Bo felt more and more heartbroken by the world around her. She wanted to collapse but Lauren wasn't letting her. Lauren was allowing her to keep the illusion up: Bo was the _strong_ one, after all.

They went from the streets to the basement of an abandoned office building. And then into tunnels darker than the darkness outside. Each step the six of them took echoed against the walls, like the sound of a marching band. Mac took them left and right and left again. These tunnels were a maze. And this girl knew them like Bo knew the freckles on Lauren's back. Or Kenzi's favorite ice cream flavor. Which is to say: perfectly.

It seemed to take forever to get to the end of the tunnels, but the end was worth the journey. Off in the distance Bo saw a brick building, three stories high, with lights on inside. _Lights_. Such a simple thing that had been missing from inside the city. It was small. And it seemed so foolish. But it made Bo happy. It made Bo smile. Because those lights gave this building _life_. And that gave Bo hope.

Everyone stood silent and still staring ahead. Lauren was still holding onto Bo. Tamsin stood behind Kenzi with her arms crossed in front of her chest. Some mixture of angry and relieved. Dyson stood beside Mac, both emotionless. But Kenzi could not be kept by silence.

"Oh thank God!" she exclaimed. "That took _forever_."

Bo smiled at Kenzi's declaration and noticed that Mac did, too. It was subtle. Just barely there. But it was a smile. The first sign of real emotion Bo had seen on the girl's face. And then it was gone. Vanished, as if it had never been there.

* * *

><p>It was after midnight now. Bo could tell by the way the moonlight crashed through the windowed bays of the Firehouse and danced at her feet. She wondered what was happening back home in 2016. If Trick even knew that they were missing. Or if time had simply stopped the moment they disappeared and was just waiting for their return to start up again.<p>

"I have to go upstairs and let my team know what's going on," Mac said. "You guys should stay here and talk."

She was standing at the foot of the stairs looking back at all of them. Her eyes darting around to Tamsin, Lauren, Kenzi, and Dyson before they finally landed on Bo. There was the tiniest hint of sadness on the girl's face, matched in equal parts by relief and nervousness. Bo noticed she was bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet. She was anxious for an answer.

It was Dyson who nodded at the girl. An understanding. A nod of assurance. The answer the girl had been hoping for. She nodded back and turned quickly up the stairs, leaving the five friends standing alone for the first time in over an hour. There was a moment of silence between them. But only a moment.

"What the freaking hell!?" Tamsin shouted at everyone and no one at all. "This is _insane_. Did that stone take away what little good sense you two have?"

The Valkyrie looked at Bo, then at Dyson. An exasperated look on her face.

"We are _who freaking knows_ where right now and you two are just blindly following this girl who was _stalking through the streets at night_! You're going to get us all _killed_!" Tamsin continued.

"Tamsin, just calm down," Dyson said.

"_Seriously?_ She knocked you down with _one punch_ and you want me to calm down?"

"She's not a threat," Dyson responded.

Tamsin stood silent at Dyson's statement. It was clear she didn't agree with him. It was _clearer_ that she was still furious and ready for a fight. But this was an argument that she knew she wasn't going to win. She was outnumbered. Dyson trusted her and Bo trusted her. And if Bo trusted her Lauren was going to trust her. And Kenzi, too. Four to one, she was going to lose.

"We have to stick together here," Bo said. "That's the only way we're going to get out of here alive."

"Agreed," Dyson said.

"Sure thing, Bo-Bo," Kenzi said.

Bo turned to Lauren. The doctor smiled at her and nodded. She knew Lauren would always fight by her side. 'Til the very end. Bo never had to worry. She turned and looked at Tamsin. The Valkyrie rolled her eyes before sighing and nodding in tacit agreement. _Good_, everyone was on the same page. They could get out of this _together_. Somehow.

"So what's the plan?" Tamsin asked.

"I don't know," Bo said.

"Perfect plan," Tamsin replied.

Bo sighed. Everyone was looking to her for answers and she had none to give. She was just as lost as they were. Just as stuck. She turned to look at Kenzi and then Lauren. Both human. Both in need of her protection. And then she remembered that they were both dead. She had failed them somehow. And, perhaps, this was an opportunity to fix that.

"We need to go talk to Mac," Bo said.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

* * *

><p>There was nothing that could have prepared her for this. No amount of training. No amount of reading. <em>Nothing<em>. What was supposed to be a simple thing had turned into a series of executive decisions: _a name_; _an education_; _a return_. What that meant was that while she had left as _one person_, she was returning as _six_. And she was going to have to explain that to everyone else.

As they walked she found that her mind wouldn't slow. It raced as she rapidly accessed every possible way to explain what was going on: to them, to her family, to everyone. But no explanation seemed good enough. Every possible path seemed a dead end. Too complicated. Too unbelievable. _Too much_.

As she walked she closed her eyes, praying for some sort of sign. Something that would tell her what she was supposed to _do_. What she was supposed to _say_. Just a flicker of hope. _Anything_ to guide her. But, no. She was on her own here. She was going to have to figure this one out for herself. _No problem_.

* * *

><p>Even with her mind racing ahead of her she still managed to guide the six of them through the tunnels. But this was no surprise. She knew every false exit, every twist and turn of those dark pathways like they were the back of her hand. They were a problem to be memorized. A puzzle to be solved. And she'd figured out the solution long ago. The tunnels were her <em>safe zone<em> away from home. She found comfort in their narrow corridors. Even as those same corridors echoed her thoughts back to her.

And then the exit home came. Grey stairs that emerged onto the grassy roof of her peaceful kingdom. Pointing their way towards the three-story Firehouse that her team called home. Draining her peace, her solitude away from her. And reminding her that her whole world was about to break apart, more than it already was. But she could do this. _No problem_.

She walked in silence, leading her five companions across the grass that separated the entrance of the tunnels from the firehouse. She could feel each motion of the people behind her. Each step forward. Each breath taken. Each tear being shed. And it just reminded her of what she was about to do.

* * *

><p>She stood at the foot of the stairs. A hand holding onto the railing on each side. Her body a barricade preventing them from going upstairs. Her eyes darted between the five of them, all staring back at her, all waiting for her to <em>say<em> _something_ or _do_ _something_.

"I have to go upstairs and let my team know what's going on," she told them. "You guys should stay here and talk."

There was a pause between them. No one moved. No one spoke. Her eyes kept darting between them, anxiously waiting for a response. Some sort of assurance that they wouldn't follow her when she left the room. She needed to go up by herself. She needed to talk to her team _alone_.

It was Dyson who nodded to her. The wolf-shifter had been on her side since the moment they'd locked eyes. He understood better than anyone else he was with what was happening right now. And he _trusted_ her. Which was probably the only reason she was still alive. She nodded back to him and turned to head upstairs and face her team. She could do this. _No problem_.

* * *

><p>She hadn't even reached the top of the stairs when she heard screaming coming from behind her. <em>Straight fury<em>. A belief that she was _evil_ and they were all going to get _killed_. But none of that worried her. No. What worried her was the three faces now staring back at her as she reached the top step.

No one moved a muscle. No one said a word. They stared blankly at her and she looked back as a child would who had just been caught with her hands in the cookie jar. For a moment the screaming continued behind her. Then paused. And died down to a lower conversation. But it was too late for that. Her team already knew and they hadn't found out in the way she had _hoping_ to tell them. Though, honestly, she still wasn't sure how she was going to tell them.

"There's something I need to tell you," she said.

The words fell out of her mouth suddenly and broke the stillness. There was a smile. There was a sigh. There was an eye roll and a glare that told her: "_No duh! Of course you have something to tell us_." She looked to her feet. Partly ashamed, partly afraid. She willed herself to be back in the tunnels. To give herself more time to think of what to say next. But she couldn't put this off. She had to tell her team.

* * *

><p>Her team consisted of three other people: two guys and a girl. Each distinctly different from the rest. They'd known each other <em>forever<em>. Grown up together, really. And though their personalities sometimes conflicted and resulted in arguments and fistfights, they were a team and they loved each other.

Her brother was the oldest of them. He stood nearly 6-feet tall with thoughtful pale blue eyes and a crooked smile. His ears were a smidge too large for his face and his short dark brown hair always flew uncontrollably in every which direction. He had been heavy when he was younger and had been bullied as a result. And though eventually he had grown to be thin, strong, and muscular, the bullying of his youth had left him feeling as if he were wholly unhandsome. A thought he could not be dissuaded of.

Beside him stood Jay: 5-foot-10 with a chestnut brown hair, aqua colored eyes, and a face lit by both sarcasm and the _slightest _edge of narcissism. He considered himself to be funny and felt it was a compliment when someone called him a _wise-ass_. And tough he often pretended not care about the people around him; he was perhaps the _most caring_ of the four of them. He was her ex-boyfriend. The first boy she'd ever loved. He pretended not to care when they broke up, but she knew it had broken his heart by the way he looked at her still.

And then there was Katie. _Sweet Katie_. All of 5-foot-8 with the _bluest_ of blue eyes that were so bright and kind but full of fight and heartbreak. She was Jay's baby sister, three years younger than him, and often dyed her hair to a dark brown so they'd look more alike. In another life she'd have been a ballerina, dancing the lead in _Swan Lake_. But the war had put a stop to that; in an instant any hope that Katie had had was extinguished. She rarely smiled anymore. And she never danced.

* * *

><p>"I didn't know what else to do," she said to them.<p>

A pause. She felt tears forming in her eyes and all explanation she had for what was going on left her head. She looked from her brother, to Katie, to Jay. She saw sympathy. She saw love. She saw frustration. Jay sighed and leaned back against the wall. He lifted his hands to the top of his head and just stared at her a moment.

"You leave them," he said to her. "I mean, that's _your_ rule Charlie."

She nodded. She _knew_ that. She'd come up with the rule three years ago when she and David had moved back in with them. It was meant to protect them all. And though they didn't always agree on everything, they all _swore_ by this one rule. They'd been living by it ever since.

"It's not that easy," she said back to him.

"How?" he asked. "How is it not that easy?"

Another pause. The words held themselves on the tip of her tongue. She looked at her brother. She looked at Katie. She looked back at Jay.

"It's our parents," she said.

* * *

><p>It was as if all of the air had been sucked out of the room with those three words. Three sets of eyes stared at her in disbelief. No one breathed. No one blinked. She looked from face to face. Her brother. Katie. Jay. Each looking as if they wanted to speak, to shout. To say <em>something<em>, _anything_, but couldn't.

"Charlie, that's not a funny joke," Jay finally stuttered out.

She turned to look at him. She wanted to say, "_I'm not joking_" but she choked on the words. An audible sob came from her throat. She felt her body ready to collapse into a puddle on the floor. Weightless. But her brother's arms caught her and held onto her tight.

"It's okay," he whispered in her ear.

"How did this even happen?" she heard Katie ask, her voice trembling.

There was a thud. She assumed from Jay punching the wall. Something he occasionally did when he wasn't in control. She felt her brother turn to look towards him. He never broke his hold on her.

"Pull it together, Jay," he said, not unkindly. "It's all going to be fine."

"Ethan," she whispered.

Her brother loosened his hold on her and looked down into her eyes. He looked brave as ever but she knew he was crashing inside. She wasn't sure how he managed to do it. Look so composed when everything around him was falling apart. It was moments like these when was sure everyone around them was confused. _Ethan_ was the strong one, not her.

"I'm Tim," he said. "And you're…?"

"Mac," she responded.

He nodded and slowly let her go. He turned to look over his shoulder at Katie and Jay, both nodding to assure him that they'd heard. They were _Tim_ and _Mac_ from now on, not _Ethan_ and _Charlotte_. And that was all the time they had to discuss it. Footsteps were now climbing up the stairs.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

* * *

><p>There was a moment that morning just after dawn when Dyson was still lying in bed alone and he realized that he had never felt so <em>empty<em>. Not like it had been when the Norn had taken his love away. No, it was more of a _deep longing_ hanging tight within his chest. He was _capable_ of love. He just hadn't felt it in so very long. Not since Bo, who was now more in love with Lauren than ever.

But Dyson wasn't in love with Bo. No, not any longer. Not for two years now. He'd moved on from her. Accepted her relationship with Lauren. He was happy for the both of them. He just _envied_ what they had in a way that he didn't quite understand. It was the direction that their love was heading. He could see it clearly with every look they exchanged, with every touch they shared. It was marriage and the house with the white picket fence and the kids. Oh, the kids…

Mac. Dyson was sure. He could see it in the deep brown of the young girls eyes. In the way that she stared right through him, into his heart and soul. Such a deep penetrating stare. She was Bo and Lauren's daughter. For sure.

And yet, as sure as Dyson was, he couldn't bring himself to tell Bo or Lauren. He couldn't bring himself to let them know that in this abysmal future they had a daughter. A daughter who looked so strong and so broken at the same time. So brave and so scared. So there and so _lost_. The words formed and then froze on the tip of his tongue. _Twisted. Broken. Gone_. How could he tell them that? How could he do that to them? It'd break Bo's heart. It'd crush Lauren.

* * *

><p>Moonlight crackled and fell through the glass panes of the Firehouse basement. It sparkled like diamonds at Dyson's feet and caught itself in his eyes. Four pairs of footsteps echoed in Dyson's ears. But he didn't move from the bottom of the stairs. No, he stood frozen, staring out the windows as the women ascended to whatever was waiting for them above.<p>

The shifter found himself lost in thought. Thought of that morning and all mornings before it. Thought of Lauren and Bo. Thought of Kenzi and Tamsin. Thought of his last conversation with Trick.

It had been that morning. Dyson was still lying in bed, lost in his thoughts. Dawn had already past. The sun had started to shine brightly in his eyes but that didn't bother him. No, he kept lying still, staring straight up at the ceiling. It was a call to his cell that had finally broken his concentration. Trick asking him to come to the Dal right away.

Dyson had been expecting a new lead on the mnemestone. But when he got there the Dal was closed and Trick was alone. No Bo. No Tamsin. No Kenzi or Lauren. It was just the two of them. Trick pulled him downstairs. Dyson was confused. Sure, Trick had called him into the Dal to talk alone before. But the search for the mnemestone had been largely a _team_ effort. Any meetings to discuss it had involved everyone. Dyson knew immediately that something was up.

There were rumors in certain Fae circles of something else that the mnemestone was capable of doing. No one could confirm it, of course, but Trick suspected that it was true. The mnemestone could transport someone to _the future_. And this was what Trick feared it had been used for. What Trick feared would happen if they _found _it. Bo, lost in the future. And there was no telling how dangerous that could be. Not just for Bo. But for all of them.

But they still had to find it. And Trick wanted Dyson to promise that he'd be there when they did. Trick explained that if the rumors were true, the mnemestone would transport anyone within close proximity of the "user" to the future with them.

"I need you to protect Bo," Trick told him.

This wasn't even a question. Dyson was loyal to Trick. His Blood King. But he also cared deeply for Bo and would do _anything_ to protect her. Including getting transported to some unknown time where some unknown danger was waiting for them.

* * *

><p>"D-man, you coming?"<p>

Kenzi's voice echoed inside his head and broke the memory apart. He turned and looked up at her. Tiny, human Kenzi. So frail. So stubborn. So strong. She was standing halfway up the stairs. Halfway between Dyson, alone at the bottom, and the rest of the group together at the top.

Dyson smiled and nodded at Kenzi. He slowly moved up the stairs towards her. Then paused once their eyes were level with each other.

"Where'd you go just then?" she asked him. "You looked totally zoned out, D."

"Just thinking about what I should get you for your birthday."

"Something plastic with no spending limit?" Kenzi joked.

Dyson smiled. But his smile didn't fool Kenzi, whose sarcastic smile left her face almost instantly. A stillness filled the room and bridged the distance between them. Neither moved; they just stared at each other in silence for several moments.

"No, really D, what's going on?"

"I'm worried, Kenz," Dyson admitted.

"Me too."

Kenzi leaned forward. She placed her head against Dyson's chest and closed her eyes. Dyson's arms enclosed around her, instinctively, and held her close.

"But everything's going to be okay, right?" she asked him, head still against his chest.

"I hope so."

* * *

><p>With every ascending step Dyson heard a new voice chiming into the conversation. Laying out a point. Asking a question. Ignoring someone else. It wasn't until he reached the landing at the top, Kenzi still tucked into his side, that he realized that he hadn't heard Bo or Lauren or Mac the entire time. This conversation he'd walked into had only three contributors: Tamsin and two wholly unfamiliar individuals.<p>

"What's going on?" Dyson asked, freezing the conversation.

Dyson could feel the room shift. Multiple eyes turned to look at him. But he only cared about one pair: Mac's. He could see the redness around her eyes. A telltale sign that she had been crying moments before. He wanted to go to her and hug her. He could only imagine what she was going through. After all, she was standing in a room with her dead parents.

But Mac's stance was defensive and when Dyson blinked he noticed that she was standing firmly behind someone. Someone who was staring right back at him and didn't seem very pleased by his presence.

"I'm trying to get answers," Tamsin told him, frustrated.

He saw Mac sigh. The look on the girl's face wasn't one of defiance. No, she seemed like she genuinely _wanted_ to give them answers. But she seemed like she _couldn't_, too. The look in her eyes was of a person who was too emotionally frayed to deal with explaining to Bo and Lauren that "_Hey, I'm your daughter_." And far too drained to deal with Tamsin's demand for some sort of answers, to which Mac probably had _too many_ or _none at all_.

"I'm sorry," Mac said. "I don't know what to tell you."

Tamsin let out a _loud, frustrated _groan. Dyson could see the irritation rising within the Valkyrie with every second that passed. It was an irritation that had been growing inside of her from the moment they'd arrived. And it was more than her usual frustration. Dyson was sure that something else had to be going on with her. He wasn't sure what, but he knew there was something there. Tamsin was his _partner_, after all, and he was all too familiar with each of her little idiosyncrasies.

"Maybe tomorrow," Dyson suggested.

"Tomorrow," Mac agreed.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

* * *

><p>At only twenty-four Ethan Patrick Dennis felt that he had already had his heart broken by the world one too many times. Not by past crushes or girlfriends but by the deaths of his parents and the imagined loss of his sister only three years prior. He prided himself on the fact that he was still standing tall even after each of these decisive blows had befallen him but believed that his strength in these moments made him weak. His stoic refusal to allow any sort of emotion to leak out into the world was but a cowardly attempt to hide his human half – his better half – from those around him. But if he slowed for even a moment and allowed himself to break down in front of them he knew that he would never stop and that was a chance that he was unwilling to take. So Ethan reserved his breaking down to late night moments of solitude, when sleep escaped him and he was free to relive the most painful of memories without fear of scrutiny. Moments like now when the parents he'd lost so long ago were lying just down the hall from him and the only sound in his head was his heart beating in rhythm with the fan on the ceiling, like a bass drum echoing between his ears.<p>

At present he was melting in the memory of his sixth autumn, when he'd gone with his uncle Dyson and his cousin Jay to the lake and nearly drowned in the still black waters. Just the day before his mother had kissed both his cheeks and made him promise not to have _too much_ fun while camping before sending him off with a bag full of snicker doodles (his favorite cookies) on the most torturous of adventures. It was no secret that he hadn't wanted to go on this trip. He disliked camping almost as much as he was annoyed by his cousin and hated the thought of being away from his mother and little sister. But he was yet to turn six and his mother had begged him to go, so he had "surrendered" to the torture and had almost instantly regretted it. His cousin was a raucous and moody five, who was prone to throwing fits to get attention. The ride down to the lake, in fact, had involved several of such fits, resulting in various attempts at bribery to placate young Jay and ending with the loss of Ethan's snicker doodles.

When they arrived quite punctually at five the rain had already started its heavy descent from the skies above and was turning the russet colored earth into mud at their feet. Ethan watched in partial amazement as his uncle performed a rapid series of operations – including the twisting, tying, and nailing of several seemingly random parts – in order to secure a shelter for that night, all while casually observing the maneuvers of his overly-energetic and naively daring son. Unsurprisingly, it had taken Jay only a mere ten minutes from their arrival to start the childish task of climbing the tallest tree he could find. That is to say, the tree with lowest branches that his five-year-old body could manage to reach. The ending to this crusade, of course, was not going to happen as Jay imagined it, with him sitting victoriously at the top of a shimmering Douglas fir, but with an onslaught of tears as he slipped from the second branch and collided with the ground. Ethan had falsely hoped that the resultant over-dramatic wailing would put an immediate end to their silly little trip, but it only forced him into the tent with a sniffing Jay for the rest of the night. In later years, looking back on that dreadful trip to the lake, Ethan wouldn't remember nearly drowning or the tantrums of his five-year-old cousin, desperate for the attention he'd stopped getting after _his_ sister's arrival, but his annoyance at having been forced into going and his reluctance at playing with Jay, who had only ever looked up to him. That night though he remembered being so desperate for Jay to leave him alone that he pretended to fall asleep early just so that his cousin would leave him alone to his thoughts and silent misery.

The bright dawn of Monday morning had landed without warning, lighting every dewdrop and silent ripple of the lake like a freshly cut diamond. Had he been far older and far wiser at this point Ethan might have thought it to be beautiful. Instead he found the bright cast of sunlight to be jarring as it fell across his sleeping face and woke him from the peaceful slumber that he had been enjoying. But enjoy he would no longer, for Jay had already started his assault on Ethan's sleeping form, a mixture of juvenile pokes and shoves meant to draw Ethan out of the tight cocoon of his sleeping bag and into whatever camping adventure they were meant to "enjoy" that morning. A morning hike through the hills was what was proposed by his uncle and immediately thrown away as the shrill screams of a temper tantrum filled the air. The wild imagination of young Jay demanded that the largest of fish be plucked from the deepest of depths and, in the end, this plea won out.

At approximately 8 o'clock on the morning of September the twelfth a rickety rowboat drifted through the lake waters carrying with it on its journey to the center of the lake Ethan, his uncle, and his cousin Jay, who was strapped tightly into a life vest. A heavy fog had rolled in over night and now laid stiff over the black waters, like a grey wool blanket had come to tuck the lake in for bed. Ethan remembered peering hard through the low dancing mist and being completely unable to see anything much beyond his tiny hands. To him this was a gift that allowed him to disappear for a moment into his own imagination, which saw a world of magic dancing around their tiny boat. But his cousin did not see the world that he envisioned and slowly became impatient by the cloudy mist around them and the lack of progress collecting his largest fish, so he began to rock.

It took all of three minutes for the temper tantrum to escalate from a steady back-and-forth motion to full on naval assault. Waves began to break away from the tiny rowboat and black water splashed against Ethan's shoes as it flew over the side and crashed onto the mow. There was a sudden but futile attempt to stop Jay from causing the inevitable: a reach through the fog that was like hitting the brakes after you've already caused an accident. Too little, too late. The rowboat capsized and pitched the three riders headlong into the black abyss. Ethan barely had the time to realize what was happening before his mouth filled with the murky black water and he began to fall under and drown.

The water was icy cold and tasted as Ethan imagined burnt rubber would. Though he flailed his arms in a desperate attempt to break the surface the lake had other ideas and continued to pull him deeper. With every second the world around him began to turn darker and darker and drift further and further away. At a certain point he realized that he hadn't taken a breath in what felt to him like forever and he opened his mouth to do so, letting a rush of water instantly crash in. His chest felt tight, but his body felt warm, maybe even hot, as he began to lose consciousness. Although he had no real concept of death or Hel at his young age, he imagined that this warm embrace was his entrance into the afterlife and felt instantly calmer upon this thought. His last conscious awareness was of his uncle swimming towards him through the blackness, seemingly racing to pull him out before Hel got him.

Ethan came to about an hour later, buckled into the passenger seat of his uncle's truck with a blanket wrapped tightly around him, barely able to remember having been at the lake at all. As he awoke his first conscious remembrance was of his cousin sitting beside him, life vest still on, having another of his endless fits. Young Jay dramatically declared, in no short order, that the water had been _cold_ and that he had been in it for _too long_ and was now getting the _sniffles_, which would absolutely _ruin_ the rest of his week. Though none of Jay's tantrum recalled any memory of nearly drowning in Ethan at the time, it did stir an unusual amount of anger inside the young boy's chest.

"Jay, shut up!" he shouted.

The sudden outburst of emotion from him caused Jay to promptly burst into tears, a reaction that elicited immediate guilt within Ethan. He felt so ashamed that he spent the remainder of the ride back home with his eyes glued to his wet shoes and the puddle they formed at the bottom of his uncle's truck as his cousin wept steadily beside him. It was at some point during that ride home that Ethan, hardly a boy, made the decision to never outwardly exhibit emotion again. He believed that it was better to keep his emotions locked tightly away where they could never hurt anyone else and had stood steadfast by this notion since. Most of the time this notion protected him from the harsh realities of the world around him, such as when his mother died years later or when he started getting bullied for being overweight, but often it was his downfall and he knew it. His refusal to show emotion had irrevocably damaged many of his personal relationships, including his relationship with his sister, whom he loved with all his heart and who often came to him for comfort when she was breaking down, but who claimed that she felt a great distance between them, even as he held her and told her everything was going to be okay. He regretted it everyday.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

* * *

><p>There was a steady stream of beeps and boops coming from the massive computer terminal in front of Katie that sounded to her more like a mash-up of Chopin and something Robert Hood would produce than the sounds a computer was supposed to make. This was their key to the city: it held every map, every blueprint, and every record they could ever need. During the day it lit up like a bipolar Christmas tree, blues and greens and oranges like Katie had never seen. She didn't understand it all. But Charlie did. And Charlie said that this was how they knew the bank of computers was working. Each color meant something different. Each color let them know what was going on in the city. Where they were needed. Where they weren't. You just had to understand the code. So as Charlie slept on the tiny sofa in the corner, Katie watched the computer screens as they blinked and shifted and swirled like a watercolor painting, ready for the slightest change in color to alert her to trouble in the city. But everything had been blue since Charlie had come back from her mission. And blue was a <em>good<em> color. But Katie knew that everything was not good. At least not at the Firehouse.

In the bedrooms just above them were five people from another time and place that they were all intimately connected with: their families. It was Ethan and Charlie's moms and Katie and Jay's mother and father and their aunt Kenzi. Though it had been many years since Katie had seen their faces, she remembered them all from memories or pictures that she'd been shown. And it was _weird._ So freaking weird. She wanted to scream and laugh and cry all at the same time. She wanted to run into her mother's arms and just _hug_ her. But she couldn't. No, that would be difficult to explain. And God, that was so frustrating. But worse? The fact that Charlie was sleeping on the sofa behind her and Ethan and Jay were asleep somewhere upstairs. She wanted to _freak out_ with someone. How did they not?

"Anything?" she heard a voice.

Katie turned to see Ethan standing tall in the doorway. He had the disheveled look of someone that had been rolling around uncomfortably in bed, trying to find a position to pass out in. But Katie knew that it was nothing more than a look. Ethan never slept. Over the years she'd passed his room many times in the middle of the night and _always_ found him wide awake, staring straight up at the ceiling, as if he were in some sort of trance. But yet, he always seemed to be so _rested,_ even as the rest of them shuffled through life exhausted on two hours of sleep. It was this fact, combined with Ethan's constant emotionless state, that made Katie sure he was a robot. For sure. And you _don't_ freak out with robots.

"Nothing but snoring," Katie retorted.

"I don't snore," Charlie's sleep-saturated voice came from the couch.

A smile, ever so slight, formed on Ethan's face. Just the slightest show of emotion. Of _happiness_. In another lifetime, perhaps, Katie would've told him that it made Ethan look all the more handsome. But, no. They were in this lifetime and that slight smile was gone, instantly replaced by Ethan's constantly stoic look, before Katie could even manage to smile back.

"Do we have a plan yet?" Ethan asked.

"Get them out of here as fast as we can," Charlie responded. "Before we have to really explain anything."

"Do you really think we can do that?" Katie asked, turning back around to look at Charlie.

"I don't know," Charlie responded, uncertainty in her voice. "I hope so."

At this Ethan entered the room and sat in the spare chair. The three of them fell silent. Katie looked between Ethan's vacant blue eyes and Charlie's deep brown. It was a tiny physical difference between them, barely worth mentioning to most, but many of Katie's memories of the Dennis siblings and her relationship with each hinged on those eyes.

Ethan had been one of the first boys that Katie had ever had any feelings for. Not just a little schoolgirl crush but actual _feelings_. It had taken her the better part of a year and the start of the war to gather her courage and tell him how she felt. She wished she hadn't. She wasn't sure what she had been expecting from him but she was certain that she deserved more than his natural stoic look as he explained to her that he was _flattered_ but she was _sixteen_ and he simply wasn't interested in a little girl. It had devastated her in a way that she wasn't prepared for. She cried all night and when her brother came to ask her what was wrong she refused to tell him. She refused to be that silly little girl.

As the war escalated Katie started to feel different. She started to become less and less in control of her own emotions. She would cry uncontrollably for seemingly no reason. Then become angry the next second without warning. Her brother joked that maybe it was just "_puberty or PMS or some shit_" but it was worse than that. It was like PMS on steroids and it affected her ability to patrol. Eventually the boys started leaving her behind at night. She felt useless. She felt overwhelmed. She felt so much _pain_ and she was looking for any way she could to dull it so that she could be herself again. This was when Charlie came back.

It was on the third night that Charlie and Katie went out on patrol together. They were setting up the devices that Charlie needed for the computers to make their maps and came across the Hawk Brothers picking the pockets of two dead bodies. Katie immediately started to tremble, leaving Charlie to drive the pirates away. Once Charlie'd gotten rid of them she turned back to Katie and sat beside her on the curb. Katie told her everything that had been happening and how much worse it had been getting.

"You're feeling the dead souls," Charlie said, softly, apologetically.

Of course. This made sense. Katie was, after all, her mother's daughter. A Valkyrie if ever there was one. And the war had brought so much death and destruction. So many lost souls, crying out, wandering the mortal plane. And Katie was feeling them all as they cried out to her. She wasn't useless after all.

Katie and Charlie walked back to the Firehouse that night discussing what to do. They agreed that Katie was in no position to be bringing all the lost souls back to Valhalla. Even if she tried, the Valkyries there would probably kill her as soon as she arrived. But Katie couldn't go on living this way.

"There's only one thing I know of that's good for relieving emotional stress," Charlie told her.

"Huh?"

Suddenly Katie felt Charlie's lips on hers. A slow, deep kiss like Katie had never had before. It startled her but she didn't pull immediately away. She just let herself drift into it.

"Charlie," she whispered as the other girl pulled away. "What was that?"

"Sex," Charlie responded, matter-of-factly. "That's the only guaranteed stress relief I know."

There was a pause as Charlie's words sunk in. A million different thoughts ran through Katie's mind: _Is this a joke? Is this a dream? Am I dead and in heaven? Or Hel? Or is she serious? No, no, no… WAIT!_

"Charlie, I've never…" Katie trailed off. She locked her eyes on Charlie's, watching as the brunette took in what she was saying.

"I understand," Charlie responded. "And, you know, your first time should be special. It should be with someone who loves you. When you're ready."

Another pause.

"I'm ready," Katie responded.

She lost her virginity that night, on what she still considered to be one of the best nights of her life. She knew that this was never going to develop into a relationship but that Charlie still loved her, deeply, and always would. She could see it in Charlie's deep brown eyes in the moments after they'd finished up, when Charlie was holding her close, tucking Katie's hair behind her ear, and whispering her to sleep. This feeling? Katie could always be sure of.

And she was sure of it now, as the three of them continued to sit silently in the room, communicating without saying a word to each other. Everyone in this room was going through the same thing. Their parents were upstairs. And they wanted to scream. But they couldn't.

"Let's make a deal," Charlie's voice cut through the silence. "We won't tell them anything _unless_ we all agree that we have no other choice."

Charlie turned to Ethan as she finished speaking. There was a nod between them. A nod of solidarity. The nod of the Dennis siblings who always had each other's backs. Even when it seemed like they stood on opposite sides. Then they turned to Katie. Katie who wanted so badly to shake her head _no_. Who wanted so badly to run into the room her mother was sleeping in and scream "_Mom I've missed you so much" _and just run into her for a hug. But Charlie was looking at her and Charlie loved her and Charlie was the most levelheaded among them. Even more so than Ethan the robot. So Katie knew that Charlie was right. She nodded.

"And Jay?" Katie asked.

"Of course," Ethan responded. "It's the four of us, together."


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

* * *

><p>Bo couldn't sleep. Her mind wouldn't let her. It raced with thoughts of Trick, of the mnemestone, of the past, of the future, of Kenzi, of Dyson, of Tamsin and Lauren. Images of utter destruction and total devastation flashed before her eyes, one after the other in a steady rhythm, each replacing the one before it with something just as grave, just as impossible to forget. The world that they had landed themselves in was shrouded in the most unimaginable blackness. Streets were abandoned, littered with trash and the smell of death lingering so powerful in the air that Bo was sure that she would never forget it. Homes were no longer homes. There was no light, merely darkness everywhere. It hurt Bo's heart and, though she was trying desperately not to, she began to cry. How could this have happened?<p>

Beside her she felt Lauren shift onto her side and then the blonde's hand was gently, lovingly wiping away the tears from her eyes. Bo heard Lauren ask her what was wrong, if it was more than the nightmare of the world outside, but Bo couldn't keep herself calm enough to muster a reply. Each attempt at speaking came out as choked sobs and flooded Bo's face even more with tears. Lauren began to whisper in her ear, begging her to try to calm down. Bo took several sharp intakes of breath in an attempt to settle herself and stop the tears from forming but she just couldn't get herself to relax. Everything around her was so broken and she just couldn't get the images out of her mind. It took several more minutes and endless whispers of love from Lauren to finally get the tears to lessen and Bo's breathing to return to semi-normal. How Lauren was not breaking down herself and was able to remain steady, comforting Bo and reminding her of how much she loved her the entire time, Bo was not sure.

"What happened?" Lauren asked her. "What's wrong?"

Words flooded out of Bo like the rush of a river as she fought to explain herself without breaking back down into a puddle of tears. This world was worse than the darkest place that Bo had ever been. It was worse than she imagined death would be and she felt helpless and hopeless and utterly broken. This world of unimaginable blackness that they'd landed themselves in was the _future_ and Bo found herself wondering if there was anything that she could do to change it or if this horrible tragedy was inevitable. When they went back home would they discover that nothing that they did could ever reverse this gloom and doom from occurring? Was this the world that their children would wind up in?

As Bo continued to explain all of these racing thoughts to Lauren she began to cry again. She felt the blonde's arms wrap tightly around her and pull her into a tight embrace. Lauren's lips found their way to Bo's ear and she began to whisper the same pure testimonies of love as before. _I love you, you're beautiful, you're amazing_ on constant loop. Not a broken record, but a heartfelt promise. The sincerest and most devoted of feelings.

"I'm sorry," Bo sobbed into Lauren. "I'm just not myself right now."

"It's okay, Bo," Lauren whispered back to her.

But Bo didn't feel like it was okay. She was the "Chosen One" after all. Granddaughter of the Trick, the Blood King, who could change time with the hot liquid that ran through his veins. Daughter of pure blackness and destruction. What she imagined this place would be if it were a person instead of a place. She'd been through so much and always came out on the other end, stronger than ever. The others looked to her for support. They looked to her to lead them. And here she was, wrapped up in Lauren's arms, sobbing, unable to control her emotions and completely unable to do what everyone else needed her to do. How could she get them all through this when she wasn't even sure if she could stop crying long enough to get herself through it? And how was anything about that okay?

Lauren must've felt the uncertainty taking hold of Bo when she didn't get a response from the brunette. She gently pushed Bo's long hair behind her ear and then Bo felt her soft lips press up against her cheek a pause there for a moment. Bo felt herself tremble within Lauren's arms, tears welled in her eyes and continued to fall down her face and onto the pillow and sheets beneath her. She imagined that her tear stained cheeks must taste of salt and wondered for a moment how Lauren didn't immediately pull away each time she lowered her lips to Bo's skin. The answer was simple though: Lauren loved Bo tear stained cheeks and all. This was something that Bo knew. She never forgot it, really. It was always there in the back of her mind, waiting to pop up in the moments that she needed it the most. Like right now, when remembering this fact instantly started to calm her.

"That's better," Lauren whispered in her ear as Bo's crying subsided and her body stopped shuddering. There was a pause as Bo lifted her eyes to look into Lauren's and the blonde gently began wiping away the stray tears still caught on Bo's face.

"I can't believe I just cried like that," Bo said.

"Bo," Lauren said, the tone in her voice shifting into an odd mixture of lover and doctor. "You're pregnant. It's okay for you to be emotional. Normal, even."

Bo let out a curt laugh at Lauren's statement. It wasn't that what the blonde had said was funny. It wasn't. Not at all. It was that Bo was still so _amazed_ by it. By the little miracle inside of her. The truth was that they weren't exactly sure _how_ Bo had gotten pregnant. Or, rather, they knew the _how_ of it rather well. It was more about _what_ had made it possible that they didn't understand. It was a puzzle. A mystery that Lauren had been trying to unravel for them since they'd found out. She'd been searching through every Fae history book that she could get her hands on to see if there was word of a Fae and human procreating. Or two women without the help of human science. So far though Lauren had found nothing of use. Nevertheless, they were glad that Bo was pregnant because they both wanted to have children so very badly. But the pregnancy was still new in so many ways and so they hadn't told anyone about it. Not Trick. Not Kenzi. No one. It was their little secret.

"This isn't the world I want our child to live in," Bo said.

"I know," Lauren responded. "Me either."

Lauren's words lingered in the air as they lay together in silence, staring at each other. Soon, though, the silence began to melt between them and transform into something new: whispered visions of the future. Of the house that their child (but, hopefully, children) was going to grow up in, with an extra large yard and a swing set out back. Of Sunday mornings when they'd have pancakes together as a family and then climb into Bo and Lauren's bed for family naptime. Of the pillow forts that they'd build together. Of cartoon watching and teaching him or her to ride a bicycle and, eventually, a to drive a car. Of first crushes and dates and, inevitably, broken hearts. It was the perfect dream and Bo allowed her mind to drift off into it because the world that she _wanted_ was the one that Lauren promised they'd have. She had faith in Bo, in their ability to erase the nightmare outside… _together_.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

* * *

><p>On the third floor, at the end of the hall, was a door cautiously locked; not in the manner of secrets to be kept but in the manner of protection at once needed. Behind the door was the combination of two previously separate rooms converted into an amalgamation of bedroom, playroom, and classroom with every spare inch infused with the embodiment of a twelve-year-old boy's dream of outer space. This included, but was not limited to, a mountain of thick texts on the history of space exploration, rocketry, and the topography of the moon; artfully rendered maps of Phobos and Deimos, containing within them the artistic liberties of their childish illustrator, half smiles hidden within the shadows of their craters; a series of model rockets and satellites suspended by colorful rope from the ceiling, surrounding a magical foam representation of the sun and all of the planets in the solar system; several of the fictional works of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, who stood, arguably, at the very heart of space exploration; numerous photographs, varying in quality and type, of Neptune and Jupiter and Venus; the instructions, creased and heavily thumbed, for how to make your own telescope, lying quietly beside what one could only assume was the reader's attempt at doing so; and a vividly colored full wall mural of the <em>Saturn V<em> rocket as it stood just before takeoff, sketched and painted with an obviously loving hand, overlooking the bed of this young dreamer.

At the moment, stuffed in a chair in the dark corner, armed with heavy afghan, was Charlie, eyes trained on the black thatch of hair sticking out from beneath a downy soft map of a solar system. It was coming on six in the morning and soon the Firehouse would be alive with spirits long gone. Only these weren't spirits and that was going to be a problem. Yet again, Charlie found her mind racing with thoughts of how to best handle the situation, which seemed to be growing more complicated as each second passed by. She found her mind wandering down the hall to the bedroom that her parents were now sharing and felt an odd sort of peace in the realization that they were together. Her moms were together. It was an image that she had never seen growing up and now she couldn't manage to let it go.

A key turning in the lock jarred Charlie out of her reverie. She listened closely as a deft and familiar touch slowly twisted the doorknob and slid a booted foot inside the door. A pair of sad aqua colored eyes slowly poked their way into the room and glanced instinctively in her direction. It was Jay; he had a sheepish smile on his face not unlike someone who felt like they owed an apology and two mugs of hot tea swirling vanilla and caramel scented smoke into the air.

"Katie said you'd be in here," Jay whispered.

Silence. Charlie watched as Jay shifted his large muscular body into the room, quietly closed the door behind him with the heel of his boot, and relocked it with only the tips of a thumb and forefinger. It was a shadow dance, memorized and perfected, each step requiring the minimum of concentration from the performer; it flowed together seamlessly, taking on the appearance of one single maneuver when, in fact, there were a dozen. This was a performance that Jay had put on probably a million times and only Charlie understood the remarkable beauty of it: a boxer who moved as gracefully as ballerina.

"I thought, maybe, you could use some company," Jay said, still standing by the door.

"I don't know what to tell him," Charlie responded.

Their voices hovered just barely above a whisper. The air seemed heavy between them, as if it contained within it more than simply oxygen, but a lifetime of heartbreak and regrets left undealt with. The fact that, nearly alone now, the two could hardly stand to look at each other only stood to strengthen this point.

"I could talk to him, if you wanted," Jay responded.

"Because _you_ know exactly what to say," Charlie snapped back. She froze, instantly, closing her eyes upon realization that Jay was standing directly in front of her, hand extending a mug of tea. A flush of embarrassed red formed at the tips of her ears and she started to wish that she could unsay the words she'd just blurted out. Though Jay often annoyed her, and her him, he was wholly undeserving of such insensitivity when it was obvious he'd only come to check up on her because he cared. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have…"

"It's okay," he said, cutting her off.

Charlie smiled at him apologetically and took the mug of tea he'd extended to her. The mug was warm in her hands but the liquid inside was still hot and tasted better than it smelled. It was her favorite tea, perfectly sweetened, which she drank every morning promptly at six. The exact time that it was now.

"Thank you," Charlie whispered to Jay.

Jay nodded quietly in response and then sat down on the stool beside her and drank some of his own tea. A minute past, then another, both of them ignoring each other while they stared at the motionless lump buried beneath heavy covers on the bed, neither quite sure what to say.

"I love him, too, you know," Jay's voice broke the silence.

"I know," Charlie responded.

"And I'm hurting, too."

"I know," Charlie whispered. She turned to look at him in the darkness, tears forming and falling from her eyes. His face was turned down towards the ground, and though she could hardly see his face she believed that his eyes were trained hard on the cup of tea as if he were trying to will it to explode in his hands. She sensed what she felt must be a small quiver of his lower lip and knew then that he was expending all his strength to not cry in front of her. This was typical of Jay; he'd often admit to her in private that he was hurting but then attempt to swallow his feelings and hide them away from her and everyone else. Jay's feelings often seemed only to exist in the sense of words, not in the sense of actual emotions. It reminded Charlie of the way that her brother often seemed to exist in the world, but Jay was so very different than Ethan because Jay _did_ feel, of that she was certain.

A ruffling came from the bed; a quick shifting of body and the blankets surrounding it that pulled Charlie and Jay out of their sullen silence and redirected them to the only reason they were both in the room: David.

"Is it time to get up?" David's voice rang, still partly buried beneath his blankets.

"Almost, little man," Jay responded, the sound of a smile breaking his voice open. He lifted himself from the stool he was sitting on and promptly pulled the solar system away from David's face. A series of short laughs broke the air between them. This was how Charlie knew that Jay really did feel, because he really did love David and David loved him back.

"Why are we up so early?" David asked. Even having just woken, David had the overly excited look of a twelve-year-old boy hell-bent on having the greatest of adventures. His bright blue eyes beamed with a childish excitement but held within them something deeper: a vast intelligence and understanding of the world around him. He had curly black hair that fell everywhere around his head, uncontrollably, but yet gave the appearance at having always been freshly brushed. His smile lit up his face and his laugh echoed in the hearts of those around him. To Charlie and to Jay David was perfect, but to him they were.

From the bed David turned to look at Charlie for an answer. There was hope and excitement in his eyes, a wonderful ignorance of the news that Charlie needed to tell him. But she couldn't find the words. She paused, she searched for them, she tripped, and she fell over them… It was going to break his heart and Charlie just wasn't sure she had the strength in her to do that. Not when she'd been protecting him all his life.

"Well, I have something I need to tell you," Jay said. His eyes caught Charlie's and he nodded to her, a silent "_it's okay, I got this_" to quiet her racing thoughts. David's eyes were bright and happy, like a child expecting a mountain of gifts, as he turned towards Jay. It was a wonderful sight, but it wouldn't last because Jay was about to upend the world that David knew and that broke Charlie's heart.

"We had some visitors last night," Jay started. "And they kind of need our help, so they're going to be staying with us for a little bit."

A pause, Charlie watched David's face as Jay spoke to him. The bright and happy had shifted out of his eyes. It wasn't quite gone, just waiting in the wings while he listened.

"The thing is though, buddy, these people aren't exactly strangers," Jay continued, slowly, pausing at the end of every sentence. "We know them. It's… it's our parents, bud. Charlie and Ethan's and mine and… yours, too."

Jay stopped here. David's eyes were shifting between looking right at Jay and looking over to Charlie. He didn't seem at all confused by what Jay had just told him, it was more the look of someone that wanted the words to not be true. In fact, Charlie was positive that he was waiting for her to tell him that Jay was joking. But he wasn't and after a moment this seemed to sink into David's head and tears began to roll down the boy's cheeks. Charlie watched as Jay reached out to hug him and David quickly pushed him away and shoved himself back up against the headboard.

From the moment that Charlie appeared by his side it took all of thirty seconds for David to begin full-on sobbing into her arms. Instantly she held him tight up against her, rubbing his back with one of her hands as she whispered soothingly to him that everything was going to be okay. She hadn't even realized that Jay had disappeared from beside them until she heard the telltale opening and closing of the door, followed by the turning of a key in the lock. This was as far as Jay could go in helping and he knew this. But even as he left a part of him was still standing strong in the room overlooking Charlie and David; a vividly colored mural, sketched and painted in an obviously loving hand, the silver signature of it's artist hidden away deep in the corner: JAY.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

* * *

><p>Somewhere in the quiet of dawn Dyson sensed that something wasn't quite right. A chill drifted through the Firehouse and wrapped itself around him, startling him and waking him from his sleep. He rose up from the flimsy mattress and placed his feet on the cold ground beside the bed. It was early and everything around him felt slow. He sniffed at the air, searching for a sign of whatever had woken him, but there was nothing but the same unsettling feeling that something wasn't quite right. He moved to the hall and eyed the doors to the rooms that Kenzi, Tamsin, Bo and Lauren had been given. The doors were all closed and seemed as if they hadn't been disturbed. His eyes drifted down to the end of the hall and he noticed the only door with a key lock. He stepped slowly closer to it, sniffing the air with each step, a hand outstretched towards the knob. Before he could reach the door though it opened and Mac stood in the doorway.<p>

The two froze when they saw each other and silently stared. Dyson noticed that Mac's grip on the doorknob tightened and she took a subtle step backwards into the room she'd just popped out of. He sniffed at the air. It was a human on the other side. A boy.

"You're to leave him alone," Mac said, not unkindly.

"Leave who alone?" Dyson asked.

"David. His name's David," Mac replied.

"He's human."

"He's twelve," Mac responded matter-of-factly. "And he's upset. It's been a rough morning."

Dyson sighed. He got the feeling that there was more to it than what Mac was telling him but he didn't want to push it. She was already on the defensive and really had been since they'd arrived. Everything she said was laced with caution. Everything she said felt like it was only part of the truth. But Dyson understood secrets. They were painful and they ate away at you. Making you less than who you are. So he stood down. He chose not to go any further.

"I understand," he replied.

Mac nodded a silent _thank you_ towards him and then closed the door behind her. Dyson heard the sound of the door locking, verification that Mac cared deeply about whoever was on the other side of that door.

"They're probably waiting for us downstairs," Mac said.

"I think you're right."

* * *

><p>"His name was King," Bo said.<p>

Dyson noticed a subtle change in the four unfamiliar faces, a moment of recognition given in perfect harmony by each of them.

"You know him?" he asked.

"Did," corrected the man who'd introduced himself as Tim. His voice was cold and emotionless and Dyson noticed that his eyes held a blank look in them. "He was a pirate."

"A pirate!?" Kenzi chimed in. "Like with an eye patch?"

"Not quite. More mercenary, less eye patch."

"They save people in exchange for the shirt off their backs," came a voice from the corner, the girl who'd called herself Katie. She was sitting on a table in the corner with her arms folded across her chest in annoyance and her legs swinging back-and-forth beneath her. Dyson noticed that she kept turning to look at Mac, not as if Mac was the leader of their group but as if she were looking for something else.

"Like those two guys we saw near the apartment," Tamsin said to Dyson.

"He is… he _was_ one of them," Mac said before Dyson could respond. "They call themselves the Hawk Brothers and if anyone knows where the mnemestone is…"

"It'll be them," a voice came beside Mac, finishing her sentence for her. It was the one who had introduced himself as Jay last night. Who Mac had stood cautiously behind while Tamsin had screamed for answers. Who had looked angrily at Dyson the entire time. Even now, when his voice was ringing so calmly beside Mac, he seemed angry.

"So that's where we go," Bo said. "To see these 'Hawk Brothers.'"

"Some of us should stay behind," Dyson said, looking at Bo. "No point in dragging everyone along."

"Yeah, you're right," Bo agreed.

"I'll go," Tamsin said immediately.

"No, Tamsin, I need you to stay here, with Kenzi and Lauren," Bo told her, eyes locked on Lauren's as she spoke. "Dyson and I will go."

"Fine, fine," the Valkyrie responded with an eye roll and exasperated sigh.

"Mac?" Bo asked, turning to look at the girl.

There was a moment of pause after Bo spoke. Dyson watched as Mac's eyes locked onto Bo's and happiness mixed with uncertainty spread across her face. She bit her lower lip, a nervous tick, probably, and then nodded.

"We should take another member of your team, too," Bo offered.

Another heavy pause and nod was exchanged between Mac and Bo. Then another slight pause and all of the uncertainty that Dyson was so sure had been inside of Mac melted away, replaced by a confidence that seemed to appear out of nowhere.

"You heard her, White Knight," Mac said. "You're with me."

Dyson was unsure whom Mac had been speaking with until he saw Jay's angry form pulse forward and start crossing the room behind her. He walked slowly in line behind her, appearing as if he was her shadow, but Dyson sensed that something more was there. Jay wasn't acting in the way that a follower does or in the way that a bodyguard would but in the way that someone _in love_ does. Everyone movement of Mac's seemed to light something inside of him and his every breath appeared as if he were trying to absorb her into him. Dyson knew the look well. But then she paused and he paused, too, and the light inside him flickered and faded as if he knew why she'd paused.

"We'll be back before sundown," Mac reassured. Dyson noticed that her brown eyes were locked on Katie's blue for one, two, three seconds before she turned towards Tim and exchanged a nod. Behind her Dyson saw the light inside of Jay fizzling out and then reanimating inside of him with something nearly identical to jealousy.

"We should go," Jay said.

"Right," Mac agreed. "Let's go."

* * *

><p>The Hawk Brothers maintained a residence in the same dilapidated part of town that the mnemestone had transported everyone to, just a block away from where Dyson and Tamsin had seen them just over 12 hours previous. With a series of gentle queries Bo had managed to get Jay to explain that the Hawk Brothers spent most nights enacting their own form of vigilante justice in the parts of town that no one else dared to go to. And, yes, they did often <em>request<em> something in return for their services but without them many more people would be dead. The Hawk Brothers were a morally grey solution in a world with an ever-expanding list of problems.

"We're here," Mac interrupted. It was the first thing that she'd said since the four of them had reached the steps down into the tunnels and Dyson noticed that for the first time since they'd met there was a certain _edge_ to her voice that made her sound nastier than he believed she was.

The building that Mac had stopped them in front of was a five-story brick structure with thick metal bars affixed to every window and a black graffiti depiction of a hawk spray painted over the front door with tall red letters reading _NO ADMITTANCE _cutting through it. Minus the graffiti it was clear to Dyson that this building wasn't like any of the others in town. For one, the buildings to the left and to the right had clearly been abandoned and then looted ten times over, whereas this one looked like it was seldom, if ever, even approached. But the main thing that got Dyson's attention was that this building smelled strongly of salt and something else vaguely metallic that he hadn't smelled anywhere else.

"Two of us should stay down here," Mac said. "In case there's any trouble."

Dyson looked over a Bo. Over the years they had both dealt with every brand of Fae trouble imaginable and had always come out on top. It was never a question of _if_ they were going to survive, but rather _how_ they were going to survive. And this was no different. The mnemestone, the future, the Hawk Brothers, all of it was just another brand of Fae trouble that they needed to get through. And they would.

Dyson and Bo continued to look at each other, silently coming to a conclusion. And then Bo nodded and the decision was made. Bo would go up with Mac and Dyson would stay down with Jay. But maybe not…

"I'll go up with Dyson," Mac directed. Dyson turned away from Bo and looked over at Mac. There was something in her chocolate brown eyes that begged Dyson not to argue, to back her up with Bo, to trust her. It was the same look that she'd given him before and though Dyson still wasn't sure why he found that he _did_ trust her.

"Good plan," Dyson said hurriedly. He took a step over towards Bo who was poised for debate and placed a hand on her shoulder, then leaned forward to whisper into her ear. "_You have Lauren to think about. Let me do this._"

* * *

><p>"Thank you," Mac said to Dyson.<p>

They were climbing the stairs to the top where Mac said the Hawk Brothers hid away during sunlight hours, counting up the previous night's haul and plotting their next act of "moral greyness." She'd given this explanation to Dyson when they'd first entered the building and immediately went silent. With anyone else Dyson would've thought to ask questions, but it was clear that this was not what Mac wanted. She'd made her statement, said what she wanted to say, and that was all there was to it. Simple. Done.

"You seemed like you'd said everything you had to say," Dyson responded.

"No, not for that," Mac responded, pausing on the landing to finally look at Dyson. "I mean for earlier. Backing me up with Bo. Saying whatever it is you said to convince her not to come up here."

"Of course," Dyson replied, as if there was no question that he would've backed Mac up. But there was a question. Dyson knew it. Mac knew it. He could see it in the girl's eyes; she understood that what Dyson did was a big deal because, really, he had zero reason to trust her.

Silence fell between them and Mac opened her mouth as if she had more to say but then bit her lip and turned to the stairs.

"One more floor," Mac said as she started walking up.

"And then what's the plan?" Dyson asked, following behind her.

"We're just going to talk to them," Mac replied, the subtle air of sarcasm lacing her words.

* * *

><p>The door they stopped in front of was the color of blood with a black iron 0 nailed firmly to its center. It's heavy oak split and cracked loudly within the frame as Mac gave it one forceful kick with the heel of her boot: yet another instance of the girl proving to be far stronger than she appeared.<p>

"Morning, gentlemen!" Mac hollered as she stepped into the room.

The room was cold and stiff, decorated in an oddly Spartan manner with no decorations on the white walls and simple pine furniture sparingly placed throughout. It seemed to Dyson unusually clean, as if no one lived there, but the piles of watches and wallets told him that this was clearly the place before he even heard a reply to Mac's loud intrusion.

"What the hell!?" someone shouted. It was the Mohawked gentleman that Dyson had encountered with Tamsin the previous night. He was standing on the opposite end of the room, nothing but a pair of grey boxers adorning his person, a look both angry and surprised covering his face.

"It appears you're one Musketeer short," Mac responded, the same hard edge in her voice from before.

"We haven't seen him," came a slightly accented voice from beside them. It was the British man that had instructed Dyson and Tamsin to go back to where they'd come from. He was standing with a large knife in his hand about six feet from the door that Mac had just broken through. Dyson thought for sure that he was going to attack them.

"How long's he been missing?" Mac asked, her voice softening to her normal tone as she turned towards this man. She didn't seem concerned by the knife at all.

"About three weeks or so," he told her. He tilted his head to the side, a motion for Mac and Dyson to follow him as he walked back to whatever he had been doing before they barged in. Dyson watched as Mac gave an irritated sideways glance to the other man and then started following. Dyson tailed behind her without question.

It took about five seconds for Dyson to realize why Mac hadn't been all that concerned by the knife. The room that they followed him into was a large, open kitchen. It was done up in the way you'd expect a chef's kitchen to be with an island in the center, a glass-door fridge, double sink, a collection of knives for every purpose, and a stove-oven combination that looked like it could cook a 500 pound man. The knife was for the herbs laid out on the island countertop, being finely chopped and placed into an assortment of colorful containers.

"Did you run into him? Has he given you trouble?" the man asked, starting at his task again.

"He stole something," Dyson said. "Something very powerful."

The man paused in his task at Dyson's words. He gave a quick glance at Dyson, the sort of glance you'd give if you were sizing someone up, and then looked over at Mac with a questioning look on his face.

"This is Dyson, I believe you've met," Mac said to him. "Dyson, this is Ryker."

"Oh, yes, last night," Ryker said, nodding and turning back to his herbs. "What is it that he stole?"

"Something called the mnemestone," Mac said.

"The mnemestone?" Ryker asked, pausing again. "I thought that thing was just a myth, some made up Fae story. I didn't think it actually existed."

"Apparently it does," Mac said. "And if King has it we need to find him. Quickly."

"I understand," Ryker said. "But I'm afraid I can't be of any service. I don't know where he's gone."

"You'll come find me if he turns up?" Mac asked. Dyson looked to her unsure of what she was doing. If they were so sure that these Hawk Brothers would know where the mnemestone was why was she being so easy on this Ryker? It didn't make any sense. The cop in Dyson was furious and wanted to pounce on this Ryker, who he was sure was hiding something. But Mac looked at him with patience in her eyes and subtly motioned to him with her hands as she mouthed: _just relax_.

Ryker nodded, continuing in his chopping and never once looking up. Mac turned and started walking out of the room, gently grabbing Dyson's arm and pulling him along beside her.

In the main room the other 'Brother' had put on a pair of black pants and was kneeling over the damaged door, poking and prodding at the cracks and the splinters. He shifted and sneered when he heard Mac and Dyson enter the room and then stood up straight, a six-foot tower of muscle.

"You owe us a new door," he growled at Mac.

Like lightning Mac punched this towering beast square in the nose, knocking him off balance. As he recoiled and reached up for his face Dyson was certain that he saw blood already running from his nostrils. He was certain Mac had just broken his nose.

"Bite me, AJ," Mac roared back, walking over the broken door as she exited the room.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

* * *

><p>In the middle of the spring of 2034, on a day both perfectly hot and perfectly cold, Jay turned his truck off the highway and onto the last stiff stretch of dirt road separating him from the lake that his father used to take him to as a little boy. Though it had been several long years since he'd been down to the lake, he still remembered the long twisting path with all of its ruts and bumps and divots as if he were traveling through a favorite photograph. Even the trees lining each side of the path seemed to him to be exactly the same – no shorter or taller – as they fought like gatekeepers to keep the rays of the glimmering sun locked out of their wooded paradise and saturated the air with the enchanting smell of Douglas fir. At the end of this russet colored corridor, laid out perfectly before him like a bull's-eye, sat the still watered crystal lake of his early boyhood with a flood of perfectly preserved memories reflecting back to him off its surface. It was what Jay imagined heaven would be if he believed in such a place.<p>

For a moment after arriving Jay remained perfectly still, eyes wide with wonder as he took in the immensely brilliant world around him from the dashboard of his idling truck. He was so wrapped up in his amazement at the trees and the birds and the water that he nearly missed the quiet rousing of his traveling companion in the seat beside him. Though the face of the young woman was half hidden beneath the hood of a dark grey sweatshirt Jay thought he saw evidence of a shy smile cross her tiny lips as she shifted out of whatever beautiful dream she had just been swimming in. A delicate hand emerged from inside the cover of her too large shirtsleeves and reached to her face to push away whatever state of sleep might've been caught in her eyes. In the next moment their eyes locked onto each other and a bridge of stillness fell between them as they stared.

"I can't believe you let me sleep the whole way down," she said. Her voice sounded both like a rainy summer's day and the deepest of sleep, a beautiful contradiction partly muffled by her sudden sheepish turn back into the hood of her sweatshirt. A small smirk of amusement materialized on Jay's lips at her cute and sudden display of embarrassment. He found himself lost in the perfect beauty of her delicate jawline and the way that she bit her lower lip as she started to look back at him; the deep pool of her chocolate brown eyes was awash with something truly magnificent and seemed at once to carry within them every ounce of the sun in the sky and the stars and constellations that came alive at night. She took Jay's breath away, every time.

The spontaneous and very much secret trip down to the lake had required Jay to emit all manner of rebellious seventeen-year-old verve and hopeless romantic that he had inside of him. For months now he and Charlie had traded whispers and longing stares, held hands and exchanged sappy love letters signed with hearts, and had stolen sweet kisses when they were sure that no one else was watching them. Theirs was a fresh new love, which they believed they'd built not on some naïve teenage dream of the future but on a deep and total understanding of each other that it took most couples years to attain. That they were still only teenagers and were hiding their relationship from their families was a fact wholly lost on both of them. As was the fact that the two of them had secreted out of town and off to the lake when they were meant to be in school learning algebra or history or whatever class they were meant to have that day. But this past year had been rather difficult and they reasoned that they needed this quiet vacation from the world, which they hoped would finally give them the courage to tell their families when they returned.

The electric air between them began to shift and scatter, squeezed from the place between their two innocent forms as they gradually moved closer together, before reforming neatly again in the newly unoccupied areas. There was a gentle meeting of foreheads and noses and the placing of a tender hand on a perfect mouth, then cheek, then neck, as their eyes began to close. Jay felt his breathing slow. Time seemed to him in that moment to be moving at only a fourth of its normal speed, allowing him the time to absorb every second and every inch of this long anticipated moment: the slow and deep exchange of a kiss without the fear of being caught. She tasted of milk and honey and the tiniest hint of sugar. It overwhelmed Jay's senses. For the first time in months he was keenly aware of how magical such a moment really was and found himself wishing that it would never end. And for a while it did.

Bound by youthful emotion and adrenaline they spent the rest of the afternoon euphorically entwined together in the bed of Jay's truck., fingers laced together and foreheads touching. For two hours they exchanged barely more than innocent whispers, long silent stares, and the occasional slow and deep kiss, but hormones were raging and this chaste interchange soon turned towards the slow exploring of each other's bodies in much the way first time lovers do. Mixed together within the awkward removal of under garments and the kissing of a delicate patch of freckles along Charlie's collarbone was the hasty escape of a meaningless _I love you_ that was reflected back to him in the most loving and sincere of manners. Finally fully understanding exactly how Charlie felt about him lit up a fiery guilt inside Jay unlike anything that he had ever felt. In that moment, echoing deep inside of him, was the overwhelming realization that he was yet to turn seventeen and he _didn't_ love Charlie, certainly not in the way that a girl like her was deserving of. But this realization, no matter how powerful, wasn't enough to stop Jay from the act of unburdening Charlie of her innocence, which he felt deserving of in some odd way.

For a while after they lay naked, knotted together in the bed of the truck, each lost in their own series of thoughts as time slipped away around them. A pang of guilt had wrapped itself around Jay's heart, reminding him that this teenage triumph had been granted based on a hollow sentiment too late to take back. Still, a part of him celebrated a silent victory at having been the first person that Charlie would ever physically be with, that Charlie would ever _feed_ from, because it was a fact that could never be erased. It was the classic internal struggle of a teenage boy who was slowly stepping into manhood and experiencing all of the emotional complications that came along with it, made worse only by the fact that Jay could feel Charlie's eyes on him as she helplessly watched him start to slip away.

They dressed in awkward silence before climbing into the cab of the truck and breaking away from a memory committed to the harsh undoing of them both. Jay sped over dirt and pavement with his eyes locked on the road before him in hard concentration as he continued to place more and more distance between the truck and the lake. With each mile that ticked away in silence Jay could feel the emotional tug-o-war inside him slowly start to rip him apart until Charlie spoke and it finally split him in two.

"Is something wrong?" she whispered from beside him. Hers was no longer the sheepish voice of a teenage girl in love, but rather the broken and crackling voice of someone already heartbroken. The sound of it ricocheted inside of Jay's chest and twisted him with even more guilt than he knew how to handle. But it was the deep chocolate brown of her eyes and the solitary tear slipping down her pale cheek that truly got to him and convinced him that he needed to lie to her.

"Nothing at all," he whispered back. "I love you."


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen

* * *

><p>Bo and Jay had been waiting for them just outside the building with a stiff silence stretched between them, an obvious sign that they hadn't exchanged a single word since Mac and Dyson had left. Upon seeing Mac and Dyson a series of questions escaped Bo's lips in rapid succession – everything from <em>how'd it go<em> to _do they know where the mnemestone is_ – with Mac subsequently shutting her down with a question of her own.

"Is King dead?" she asked.

"Yes," Bo answered. Dyson watched as she looked over at Mac. The look on her face told him that she wanted to say more but couldn't find the words. It reminded him so much of the exchange between he and Mac just moments earlier.

"We found him just before the stone transported us here," Dyson interjected. "He appeared to have killed himself."

A frustrated sigh escaped Mac's lips and she turned her back to Bo and Dyson.

"Why didn't you tell us this before?" Jay asked them.

"I'm not sure," was all Dyson could manage to say.

They stood there for a while in silence, Mac's back still turned towards them, Jay standing quietly off to the side with his arms now folded across his chest. It was a minute before Mac turned around, looking first at Bo and then to Dyson. She told them, her voice only slightly tinged by sarcasm, that now that she had _all_ of the information she had a theory. King had always been the most moral and heartfelt of the Hawk Brothers and Mac believed that he used the mnemestone to travel back in time in an effort to _fix everything_. She wasn't sure whom he had gone to in the past but he must've found _someone_ he trusted and convinced them that the future needed help. And in order to make sure that he didn't come back with the mnemestone he must've killed himself. It was a theory that made all too much sense to Dyson, especially when he considered Trick's involvement in this whole search. King had gone to Trick, Dyson was sure of it.

"And the mnemestone?" Bo asked.

They'd made it to the tunnels by this time and in the dark it was difficult for Dyson to make out Mac's face but he was sure that this question had caught her off guard. In fact, after she'd paused and turned slightly towards them it was clear to Dyson that there was a great deal of uncertainty on the girl's face.

"I'm not sure," she whispered.

But Lauren knew. While they'd been away she'd been pouring through some books that Katie had brought out for her, trying to come up with her own theory on what had happened. She told everyone that the mnemestone was barely mentioned in the books that she had but the one time it was the story detailed it's _returning_ to where it had come from originally. And this led Lauren to believe that after the stone had transported all of them from 2016 to 2041 it had returned itself to its owner: whoever that was.

"So now what do we freaking do!?" Kenzi had asked.

"We need to find out where its home base is," Jay said.

"Which could be anywhere," Tamsin sighed in frustration.

Silence fell across the room. Everyone looked around, hopeful that someone had a solution at the ready, some idea as to what they were going to do now. It seemed nearly hopeless until Dyson noticed a light come on inside of Mac's head, her eyes opening wide as a solution seemed to come to her.

"Not anywhere," she said. A wide toothless smile spread across her lips, curling at the corners and lighting her eyes. The first time that Dyson had seen Mac seem genuinely pleased with herself. She explained to them that when the mnemestone had transported them all here from 2016 that her bank of computers had picked up some strange frequency. That was the reason that she had gone out that night and had run into them at that apartment.

"And if the mnemestone caused that little energy burst when it transported you here, it must've caused another one when it moved itself back home," she said. "All I have to do is go back and find it."

"How long is that going to take!?" Tamsin asked, plainly irritated.

* * *

><p>Mac had immediately gone to work searching for the mnemestone, making zero promises as to how long it was going to take her. In fact, she hadn't said anything to any of them. She'd just left the room and gone right to work. It was Tim and Katie and Jay that had reassured all of them, telling them that Mac was a computer genius and if anyone could do it… it was going to be her.<p>

It had now been twenty-four hours and everyone was starting to get a little edgy. Tamsin was pacing around, groaning in frustration every few minutes. Dyson was unsure if the Valkyrie had ever gone to sleep. Lauren was sitting on the couch, still reading through the books that Katie had brought to her, with Bo napping at her side. And Kenzi was sitting beside him watching it all, clearly bored out of her mind.

"I'll go check on her," Dyson whispered to her.

Mac was sitting in a deep trance on the floor of a tiny room, back against a couch with her legs folded "Indian style" as she stared at the small computer screen that she was holding in her hands. She was wearing black-rimmed glasses that Dyson hadn't seen her wear before and kept looking up at the much larger computer screen on the wall in front of her, a mirror of the image sitting in her hands.

"Made any progress?" Dyson asked as he sat down on the couch.

"Not really," Mac sighed. "I've narrowed it down to a three hour stretch but I'm not quite sure what I should be looking for."

Silence fell between them. Dyson had never been that great with computers. Sure, he used them for the basic things that he needed to do as a cop, like filing reports and searching through records for criminals, but beyond that he was often lost. It was in the physical world that he exceled, where he could use his fists to get answers, not in the world of circuits and programming. There was no question in his mind that Mac was in a league of her own when it came to this stuff and there was really nothing that he could do to help. Nothing any of them could do, really.

So Dyson sat and watched as Mac watched the same three hours of data over and over and over again. He watched as she zoomed in on certain areas. He watched as the smoky swirls on the map continued to twist and bloom and morph into different shapes and colors. He watched as Mac mouthed thoughts or calculations silently to herself and then paused and bit her bottom lip. He watched for thirty, then forty, then fifty minutes. He watched for a complete hour, at which point Mac sighed, took her glasses off, and placed everything on the floor beside her.

"I'm trying," she said, moving up to the couch beside him. "I'm sorry."

Dyson looked over at Mac. The girl had an utterly defeated look on her face that echoed in his heart, both for the compassion it made him feel for her and for who it reminded him of. He wanted to reach out and hold her, to tell her that he _knew_ that she was Bo's daughter, to tell her that everything was going to be _okay_ but felt that he couldn't or _shouldn't_.

"Just ask," Mac whispered, as if she knew what he was thinking. Her voice and the look in her eyes seemed to Dyson almost like a dare: _do it_, _ask me_ they said.

"Are you Bo's daughter?"

Her first response wasn't verbal, it was a simple and slow nod of the head. Dyson noticed a solitary tear start to glide down the girl's cheek, which turned into a quiver of the lip and a quick gasp for air as she tried to keep herself from crying. It seemed to Dyson that she was both utterly broken up by her struggles with finding the mnemestone and relieved that she was finally able to tell someone who she really was.

"Charlotte," she sputtered. "Charlotte Mackenzie Dennis."

Dyson smiled and slowly wrapped his arm around her, holding on as tight as he could as she laughed and cried into his shoulder.

"It's nice to meet you, Charlotte," he whispered.

"Charlie," she corrected, pulling out of his tight hug and smiling at him.

"Charlie," Dyson said, nodding. "I think you're being too hard on yourself. Let's take another look and find this stone."


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

* * *

><p>It started with a game of chess that Jay was destined to lose. Though he tried to protect his king and his queen, his white pawns were taken out easily, one after the other, as he stood by completely hopeless. Next came an isolated rook and a knight who was waiting nearby to be sacrificed. The queen went down next, cornered by her fiery black counterpart and a lucky bishop who had taken out half the field. As the dust began to settle the only piece that remained was his defenseless king surrounded by an army of black. The game was over. Check and mate.<p>

"I think you cheated," Jay joked as his king toppled and fell.

"No, you're just bad at this game," laughed his delighted opponent.

It was a truth that Jay would never deny. He _hated_ chess. The rules confused him and he found the game to be quite boring. Of course, it probably didn't help that he'd never actually won the game but, still, he played it whenever he was asked to because the person that always did the asking was David and Jay loved David so much that he would've done anything for him.

"Can we play again?" David inquired.

"If you want to," Jay replied, handing over the three black pawns that he'd managed to take off the board. There was a momentary pause as David grabbed the pieces from Jay's hand and carefully considered this offer.

"No," David said, a playful smile lighting up his face. "I think you've lost enough for today."

Laughter exploded between them like fireworks – beautiful and loud – with Jay's deep bellows and David's high pitched giggles ebbing and flowing together like a symphony. They sat there for a moment lost in their chain of happiness, bonding over the inevitable end of the match, until they both collapsed, exhausted from laughter, to the floor.

"You're too smart," Jay said.

"You're smarter," David countered, sitting up.

"No way, little dude."

"Uh-huh," David responded. "Charlie says you're the smartest person she knows."

Jay smiled. He had no doubt that Charlie had said that to David and that she had meant it when she did. It was one of her best characteristics: her ability to see people for _more_ than what they were on the surface. He loved her for it.

"What do you want to do now?" Jay asked, changing the subject.

From his vantage point on the floor Jay could see David mulling the question over; his lips twisted with each new thought and his eyes turned towards the ceiling as if he were asking some higher power for an answer. It was a truly comical sight.

"Can we go for a walk outside?" David finally asked.

It was a simple enough question with no easy answer. Outside was a dark and dangerous place, with muggings and murders happening every day. It was the _last_ place that David needed to be. David needed to be _sheltered_. He needed to be kept _safe_, inside, where there was an abundance of Fae to protect him. And Jay knew that if David has asked the same question to Charlie, he would've been shot down immediately. But the look on David's face was innocent and full of hope. It was the look of a polite twelve-year-old boy who never asked for anything and was tired of being cooped up inside. And Jay wanted so desperately to give David his wish.

"I don't know," he responded, unsure.

"Please?"

Jay pushed himself up on his elbows so that he could look more directly at David. The boy's sparkling blue eyes seemed at once to be both pleading with Jay to give in and forgiving him for not.

"Charlie won't be happy," Jay said.

"What if we take someone with us?" David offered.

"Like who?"

"Dad?" David proposed, taking Jay aback.

They hadn't really talked about it, the fact that their dad was walking around the Firehouse like a ghost. Truthfully, Jay wasn't sure how to bring the subject up or what to say to David about it. Especially considering the teary breakdown that he had when Jay had broken the news to him just the other morning. But, really, how _did_ one bring up the subject of your dead-but-not-dead dad walking around to your baby half-brother? It seemed impossible. And, yet, here David was, in all of his twelve-year-old wisdom, brining it up to Jay.

Dyson had died when David was young and Jay knew that he hardly remembered anything about their dad beyond the fact that he loved them. But now he was here and it was like David was getting a second chance to meet the man he'd never gotten to know. A second chance to talk to him about all of the random things that crossed his twelve-year-old mind. A second chance to show him the kind of man that he was on the road to becoming and make him proud. It was a second chance to have some sort of relationship with Dyson, no matter how fake it might be. This was the opportunity that David now had. And Jay, too.

"Are you sure about that?" Jay asked, sitting himself up fully. There was a flash of hope in David's eyes as he slowly nodded in response. "You understand that we can't tell him who we are?"

"I won't," David responded.

"Okay," Jay sighed. "Let me go check with Charlie."

* * *

><p>Jay found Charlie and Dyson huddled together in the room they called the "computer room" looking at the screen of one of her many gadgets in intense concentration. It was an odd sight; made odder by the fact that his dad seemed genuinely <em>happy<em> to be there, in that room, with Charlie. It was an emotion that Jay hadn't seen on his father's face since he'd arrived and it made him realize, in that moment, that Charlie had violated the pact that they had all made not to tell their parents who they were. A flood of emotions washed over Jay: happiness because _someone_ knew the truth, even partially; relief because Charlie had finally unburdened herself of the secret knowledge of who she was; and the slightest bit of jealousy and desire to be in Charlie's place. The one emotion that was missing? Anger. Even though Charlie had broken the pact – the pact that _she_ had made – Jay wasn't the tiniest bit angry with her. He _understood_ how much it had been killing her to have to put on a brave face, to be the one making all the decisions and interacting with their parents, and to hide who she was and how she was feeling – even more than she usually did – from those around her. And nothing about that could ever make Jay angry.

"Can I talk to you?" Jay asked. At the sound of Jay's voice Dyson and Charlie looked immediately up at towards the doorway that he was standing in. They stared at him, startled, for a moment, neither moving nor saying a word. It seemed that they had been concentrating so intensely that Jay's presence barely registered with either of them. But, when it did, Dyson immediately started to stand as if to leave the room, causing Jay to speak again, "the both of you."

"What's going on?" Charlie asked.

"David wants to go out," Jay told her. He waited stiffly for the quick response, the uncompromising "no" that he expected Charlie to give him, but no words came from her mouth. She sat silently staring at Jay through her spectacled eyes, as if she were thinking _something_ over in her mind. Jay stood unmoving, staring back at her.

She was beauty and grace. She was everything that he loved about the world. But their relationship was many layers of complicated, bent and broken, many times over. It had started when the two were teenagers and had lost themselves in a whirlwind of hormones and false emotions. It had been the first sexual experience for both of them and had broken apart shortly after the giving of a false _I love you_, which, in that moment, wasn't to be reciprocated. The experience had left them both terribly confused and unable to deal with the awkwardness of having to see each other every day and the flurry of emotions that now surrounded them. Then the war had started and Charlie had taken David gone away, leaving a surprising Charlie shaped hole in Jay's chest. For two years he walked around trying to erase the empty feeling he held inside. He did things he was ashamed of. Things he'd sworn he'd never do. He floated from one woman to the next, ignoring emotion, and never returning for a repeat performance. He joined an underground Fae boxing ring where he got beaten to a bloody pulp on a weekly basis. Everything just made him miss Charlie more.

It was in September of 2038 that Jay got on his truck and disappeared in the night, focused on finding Charlie, wherever she was. For days he drove along a twisted route, through towns yet to be affected by the war, showing her picture to strangers and hoping someone would recognize her face. But no one did and Jay's search started to seem more and more futile with each passing stretch of road. He was down to his last five dollars when he walked into a rundown looking bar that he knew to be a local Fae hangout and sat down, defeated, on an empty stool. Jay's mind started to wander through all of the possible explanations for not finding Charlie. Was she dead? Was she hurt? Had she been kidnapped? He became so wrapped up in these dreadful thoughts that he didn't even realize that a fight had broken out behind him until someone knocked into his stool. It was then that he saw her, standing on the other side of the commotion, staring back at him as beautiful as ever.

Jay spent that night fighting his first losing chess battle with David, Charlie watching in the nearby kitchen. His white pawns disappeared off the board quickly, followed by a lone rook and a startled bishop. Whenever Jay thought he had the advantage it was taken away, swiftly, by a black piece he had forgotten about. And just like that, mere minutes after the game had begun, David was knocking Jay's white king over onto the board with a giggly smile. Check and mate.

They talked for hours after David had gone to bed with the natural rhythm and flow they'd shared as teenagers. They talked about Ethan and Katie and David. They talked about the taste and smell of fresh snicker doodles and apple pie. They talked about winters when they'd build crystal white snow forts and battle until the sun went down. They talked about the long summer days when Charlie would join Jay as he delivered newspapers and mowed lawns to save up money for his truck. And they talked about that day at the lake when they both lost their innocence for good. It was the first time in their lives that either of them had mentioned it and an immediate relief spread between them as Jay apologized and they forgave each other. "_We were just children_," Charlie had told him. "_Neither of us understood what we were doing_."

Charlie, David, and Jay returned to the Firehouse the next night to an immediate celebration of their return. As time passed, Jay found that the Charlie shaped hole in his heart was starting to mend due to her near constant presence. He became elated as she started to seek him out to spend time with. They patrolled together most nights and could hardly go more than an hour without speaking. It was this, combined with a series of brief but meaningful kisses they'd shared, which made Jay realize that he was falling in love with her for the first time and he began to consider asking Charlie for a second chance at being together, as adults. But this was not to be, as Charlie already belonged to another. It was a fact that Jay discovered late one night, just over a week after returning, when he saw Charlie standing, only partially clothed, in Katie's doorway as the two girls kissed. It was a sight that destroyed him in away he never thought possible.

"Okay," Charlie said, breaking Jay out of his reverie. "He can go out. You can take him."

Her response shocked Jay, but only for a moment. It was very much like Charlie to be more lenient when she was in a good mood, to consider things that she normally wouldn't.

"And Dyson?" Jay asked, turning towards his father. "He'd like you to come, too."

* * *

><p>They walked through the woods behind the Firehouse in nearly complete silence with David running on up ahead to climb trees and jump off of rocks and into massive puddles. It was the simplest of acts, a childish game, really, but it made David immensely happy and that pleased Jay more than anything. And it pleased Dyson, too. Jay could tell by the subtle smile that played up on his father's mouth with every giggle that came from David.<p>

"He's really something," Dyson said as David jumped into another puddle and erupted in bright laughter.

"He's amazing," Jay responded.

Silence fell between father and son. Jay looked over at Dyson and could see a question forming on the shifter's lips but zero words came out. It was something that Katie did, often, and Jay found himself bothered by this characteristic.

"Just say it," Jay said. "Just ask."

"It's nothing," Dyson responded as he started walking down the path again.

Jay stood motionless, stunned by his father's words and his walking away. He _knew_ that Dyson knew about Charlie. And he _knew_ that Dyson was starting to piece things together. And it bothered Jay that Dyson couldn't just be a man and _ask the question_.

"No, no you don't!" Jay hollered. "I know you know!"

At this Dyson froze where he was and turned back around to look at Jay.

"I know you know about Charlie," Jay stated, his voice calming down to a more normal tone. "Why can't you just _say it_? Why can't you just _ask me_ what you want to ask?"

"He's Kenzi's?" Dyson asked.

Jay nodded, slowly, tears forming and falling from his eyes as he did. _Of course_ Dyson could figure out whom David belonged to. David did, after all, look like a reflection of Kenzi with his dark hair and blue eyes and miles of energy to spare. But _why_ couldn't he recognize Jay? Why?

"Is that all?" Jay asked, his voice now barely a whisper.

"Who's his father?" Dyson asked, a truly puzzled look on his face.

Jay's face was red and wet as a slow bundle of tears continued to slide from his eyes down to his cheeks. He let out a series of frustrated chuckles at Dyson's question. _Of course_ that's what Dyson wanted to know.

"Who do you think?" Jay asked him sarcastically. "Where do you think he gets the curly hair from?" There was a pause as Jay let the question sink in and register in Dyson's mind, but he didn't give him enough time to respond before asking him another. "Better yet, where do you think _I_ get it from?"

Jay watched as Dyson's face shifted into a blank stare, the answer to the question becoming evident to him. It made Jay laugh, a slight snicker, at the pure _stupidity_ of his own father just now recognizing him. He couldn't believe it. But there wasn't really enough time for him to enjoy the revelation because the day that started with a game of chess was about to end with David's blood-curdling scream.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** This is your halfway point.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen

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><p>Atop pure white sheets and twisted amid the softest flannel blanket imaginable was the naked, toned body of the most gorgeous creature that Katie had ever seen, peacefully sleeping away for the first time in days while Katie traced concentric circles over a soft patch of freckles located on her companion's hip with a lazy finger. It was Katie's favorite spot, followed closely by a second delicate patch located on Charlie's collarbone. She often found herself lost in these spots, swimming in the ocean of vanilla that saturated Charlie's skin, as Katie stroked and kissed and bit at these innocent blemishes, flaws that were meant to make Charlie less than the perfect creature that she was.<p>

"What are you doing?" came Charlie's sleep-drenched voice.

"Getting lost in you," Katie whispered, placing a gentle kiss on Charlie's freckled hip. At Katie's words, Charlie turned to hide her self-conscious face into the downy pillows and let go of a sheepish laugh. It was a little known secret that Charlie was uncomfortable with her own body and would often melt into a puddle of embarrassment whenever Katie – or anyone, really – vocalized her belief that every inch of the girl was _perfect_. There wasn't a scar or freckle or mole that Katie didn't absolutely _love_ with all of her heart and soul and the shyness over the attention that Katie would give her just made Charlie all the more perfectly beautiful.

"C'mere," Charlie whispered to Katie, her eyes half open as she looked down to where Katie was tantalizingly biting at her hip. An innocent smile spread on Katie's lips as she pressed one final kiss to Charlie's hip and then slowly glided her naked frame up until her bright blue eyes were staring directly into Charlie's deep brown.

"Hey," escaped a dreamy whisper from Charlie's lips.

"Hey," Katie whispered back, placing a gentle, loving kiss on the older woman's lips. As Katie broke away they placed their foreheads together and sighed, deeply, into each other. Katie held her hands gently against Charlie's face. Her eyes were closed but she had that dreamy, nearly drunk, look on her face as she hovered just above the other girl's lips.

"How long was I asleep for?" Charlie asked.

"Not long," Katie responded, opening her eyes. "Barely thirty minutes."

"I didn't realize how exhausted I was," Charlie sighed, closing the gap between their lips for another gentle kiss before speaking again. "Why didn't you wake me?"

"I love watching you sleep," Katie whispered. "You look so happy."

This was not entirely false. She _did_ love watching Charlie sleep because it was the only time that Charlie looked even somewhat happy. Katie figured it was something about the safety of _her_ bedroom – the only place Charlie ever really slept – and the distance that it offered from the war and all of Charlie's responsibilities. But, sometimes, Katie also entertained the idea that _she_ was the one that made Charlie feel safe and happy. It was, after all, Katie's arms that Charlie spent most nights tucked into, sleeping away as Katie whispered in her ear and traced patterns on her freckles and along her spine. And while all of this certainly factored into Katie's decision to let Charlie take a brief nap, it was not the only thing on Katie's mind.

They'd been together – in some odd way – for about three years now and, in that time, Katie had really gotten to get to _know_ the secrets of who Charlie was deep inside. It was the little things that added up, like how Charlie would often pause and tuck her hair behind her ear when she was feeling frustrated and alone. Or how uncertain she was about her own physical abilities and how she hated to patrol alone because of it. Or how much she hated wearing her glasses. How much she was humiliated by them, really, and would hide away whenever she needed to use them so as not to be seen. Or how insecure Charlie really was about her own appearance. And how this secret insecurity stemmed from the pedestal that Charlie placed her own mother on and the feeling that she could never compare. Or how, when they'd started their relationship, Charlie would try her best to hide her distaste of the music that Katie would put on – the old songs that Katie had danced to – but, eventually, how she grew to love it. Katie knew all of these things and so much more and that was how she knew that the girl was running on fumes, that she'd hardly slept for more than two hours combined, and that this nap was desperately needed. It was the unsaid fact that Katie _loved_ her more than anything that told her to wrap Charlie up in the safety of her bed and let her dream.

"Hey, pretty girl," Charlie whispered, kissing Katie again. "What's going on in that head of yours?"

"Nothing," Katie whispered.

"_Katie_," Charlie sighed, pushing for an answer.

"I love you," Katie responded. Tears immediately formed and fell from Katie's eyes as she waited for Charlie to respond and erase everything that they had with five simple words: _But_ _I don't love you_. But nothing came, nothing but the gentle touch of Charlie's fingers against Katie's cheek as she pressed the girl's tears away.

"Why are you crying?" Charlie asked.

"Because you love Jay," Katie sputtered out, Charlie's hand still on her cheek.

"Oh, Katie," Charlie sighed. It took seconds for her to remove her hand from Katie's cheek and sit up in the bed. Katie remained still, her heart slowly breaking apart inside her, as she watched Charlie tuck a wild strand of hair behind her ear. "I'm so tired of these games," she finally said. "It's like there's a war in my own house. You against Jay."

It was true. There was a silent dual between Katie and Jay: a battle to win Charlie's affections, which resulted in nothing but bitterness and jealousy between the siblings. If Katie saw Charlie speaking with Jay she would immediately start pitching a fit, something that she knew would tear Charlie away from Jay and into her arms. Or, sometimes, late at night, after they'd had sex, she'd go to the kitchen to get Charlie a snack and walk slowly past Jay's open door, nothing but a robe covering her, to make sure he knew what was going on. It was the game of immature children, which treated Charlie more like an object to be _won_ instead of a human to be _loved_, and Katie hated herself every time she participated in it.

"I'm sorry," Katie whispered.

"I know," Charlie responded, leaning over to place a gentle kiss on Katie's forehead.

"Why can't you just say it back?" Katie questioned.

"Because I'm not as brave as you," Charlie answered. "If I say how I feel it makes it real. And then what would I do if I lost you?"

Katie smiled and sighed; taking in the words that Charlie had left for her between the lines. She placed a hand gently on Charlie's hip, that soft intersection where those innocent freckles lived, and gave the skin there a soft squeeze. It was a silent acknowledgement that she _understood_ what Charlie had said, but that was all it was, and then it was over, broken by a boundless commotion from the living room.

* * *

><p>It took seconds, really, for the bubble to break and all of their perfect love to burst out of it into the ether, replaced by the blur of infinite tragedy. The scene as Katie saw it was broken and blistered, partial moments that rushed around her, sounds that echoed in her ears and bubbled as if they'd come from underwater. And everything was painted blood red. It was more blood than she'd seen in all of her life. And it was pouring from the limp body of her baby half-brother onto every surface of the world. It was splattered on Jay's skin and soaking through his shirt and dripping onto the floor.<p>

Katie stood frozen, observing everything from a distance, trying to spin the world back together and make sense of what was happening. Everyone was on their feet, surrounding Jay and talking all at once. Katie couldn't separate the voices; she could only focus on Jay's still face staring out in tragic disbelief as blood continued to splatter on his boots. There was a moment when he disappeared from her line of sight, converged upon fully. When Katie saw him again David was gone, taken from his arms, but Jay still stood with the same stoned look on his face. Charlie was standing beside him, blood on her own clothes, and passionate anger on her face.

"I hate you," Katie heard Charlie's voice echo in her ears.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter Seventeen

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><p>In medical school Lauren had learned all of human anatomy and physiology, she'd mapped every inch of the human circulatory system onto stray post-it notes until she'd memorized it all, she'd worked in lab groups on cadavers, taking scalpels to dead pigs and departed humans who had donated their bodies to science, she'd held unbeating hearts in her hands and weighed kidneys and livers and brains. As a resident her patients were suddenly <em>alive<em>: humans who had broken legs and arms, who had survived horrific accidents, who had pneumonia or some other infection. For a while she had convinced herself that this was no different than the cadavers but then came her first day as part of the _code team_.

Room 224 was occupied by a young boy who went by the name of Douglas Wick. He'd been admitted to the hospital with a case of rather severe pneumonia and had been fine up until that afternoon when a nurse had gone to give him his lunch and found him barely breathing. "_CODE BLUE – 224"_ had repeated twice and then a third time over the hospital loud speaker and the team sprung into action. Minus the attending on-call, the entire team was made up of three first year residents that had never run a code before. In fact, they were still at the point of trying to learn the _layout_ of the hospital and were all caught off guard by room 224 being in the pediatric wing. _A child? What if they messed up the code? What if they killed a child? _The other three members of the code team all froze-up behind the attending – Dr. Pell – and stared at each other. But not Lauren, no, she reminded herself that fear was nothing more than a chemical reaction and that she was a _doctor_, dammit, and this patient needed help.

But help is such a funny word. It's just four letters and it rolls off of the tongue with very little aftertaste but it leaves an abundance of questions in its wake: like, _who gets to decide what helping really is? _On that day, in that moment, Lauren told herself that it was _her_ who got to define what help was and _help_ in this situation involved shocking young Douglas Wick back to life once, twice, three times before he began breathing again. Lauren left proud of herself at having stepped up to the plate and saved the young boy's life, but the next day the team was called back to 224 and Lauren was forced to help him again and again. Two days later Dr. Pell informed Lauren that Douglas Wick's pneumonia had taken hold of him and that he had passed away. She had _helped_ revive him only to let him live out his last days in terrible pain. Was this what help was?

It was this thought that was currently echoing inside of Lauren's mind. She was in the infirmary, a cold white room containing the same type of metal slab Lauren used to cut cadavers open on. But now it was a twelve-year-old boy, barely breathing, blood swirling out of him in continuous rivulets and it reminded her of Douglas Wick. With all the blood that this boy had already lost and all the time that had already passed Lauren found herself asking the question: _What is help?_

"Lauren!" Tim screamed from beside her. "Please! Do something!"

His left lung had been punctured and he had several deep cuts all over his body that were releasing blood at extremely dangerous speeds. Somehow, though, Lauren had managed to keep him breathing and to sew each of the cuts shut. Now the question was: _would he survive the night?_ It seemed unlikely. Though she'd hung a bag of Tim's O- blood to replenish what David had lost the boy was still ghastly pale, a truly colorless white, and even though he was breathing on his own it was obvious that his unconscious body was struggling to do just that. It was Douglas Wick all over again; Lauren had saved him just to let him live his final hours in terrible pain.

"Lauren," Bo whispered from beside her. She had convinced everyone else to leave the room and let her keep watch over David but Bo had insisted upon staying with her and Lauren had relented. "He looks just like Kenzi."

It was true; Lauren had noticed several times while stitching the boy up that David was the _spitting image_ of Kenzi with his black hair and bright blue eyes. It was eerie how similarly the two of them really looked and Lauren had to keep reminding herself as she worked that it _wasn't_ Kenzi lying motionless on that metal table but a twelve-year-old boy. A twelve-year-old boy that could act as a stand-in for their future child – the son or daughter that Bo was carrying inside of her – and they were both standing there helpless as they watched him struggle to take what were surely his final breaths.

"Bo," Lauren said. "Maybe you should go upstairs. Maybe this is too much."

"No, I want to stay," Bo responded. "I don't want to leave you alone."

"Bo," Lauren whispered, placing her hands on Bo's hips. "I _love_ you and I know how much you love me but…" Lauren paused, taking a sharp intake of breath as she tried to find the words to say what she wanted. "He's going to die, Bo, and you probably shouldn't see that happen."

"What?" came Bo's stunned voice.

Lauren sighed, not the sigh of a person who was frustrated but the sigh of a person who _hated_ to inform anyone that someone they knew was going to die or, worse, was already dead.

"He's not going to make it," Lauren repeated, a tear streaming down her cheek. "And God, Bo, you're _pregnant_ and I just don't think you should stay here and watch a _child_ die."

"And you should?" Bo asked her.

"I'm a doctor," Lauren responded. "And right now, I'm _his_ doctor."


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen

* * *

><p>The water was scalding hot as it sprayed out of the shower head and down across Jay's face and bloodstained clothes, creating a pool of pink on the ivory tile below. Jay leaned himself forward against the shower wall, using his elbows to support himself and letting the water collide with his t-shirt covered back. He laced his hands together above his head as he stared forward and then turned his head down towards his boots and the expanding pool of pink below him. It was his baby brother's blood slipping off the front of his shirt and pants and running towards the drain to disappear forever. The sight hit him hard and he began to fall apart.<p>

"Oh, God," Jay cried out. "Oh, God. What have I done?"

* * *

><p>His clothes were totally soaked through and still stained with David's blood when he stepped into the hallway. The water dripped down to his feet, leaving a broken trail in his wake as he turned towards his bedroom. He'd barely taken three steps when he noticed his father standing at the end of the hall, looking directly at him.<p>

"Jay," Dyson said.

"I don't want to talk," Jay responded curtly, moving around Dyson.

"Jay," Dyson said, demand in his voice as he reached out and grabbed his son by the arm. "Come on."

"Fine!" Jay snapped, pulling his arm out of Dyson's grasp before quickly pinning the man against the wall. "What do you want to talk about? Hmm?"

There was a _challenge_ in Jay's eyes, a _dare_ for Dyson to say whatever it was he wanted to say. But there was something else clearly boiling up inside of Jay: an uncontrollable self-_hatred_, an obvious level of _blame_ over what had happened, and _pain_, so much pain burning inside of him and _begging_ to be let out. And though Jay _did_ want Dyson to take his challenge, to be his father and tell him that none of this was his fault, he hated himself so much that he probably wouldn't have believed him if he did. So he couldn't let him.

"You want to talk about how I bring death to those around me?" Jay shouted. "Huh? Is that what you want to talk about? How I just _killed_ my brother?"

Jay paused, dropping his arm to release Dyson from the wall. There was another challenge in his eyes: _begging_ for Dyson to stop him, to just _say something_, to just say _anything_. _Tell me it's not my fault_. But no words came from Dyson's stunned mouth. Of course his father couldn't tell him that it wasn't his fault. It _was_ his fault. David was going to die and it was all Jay's fault.

* * *

><p>He was seven the first time it happened. He'd faked sick so that his parents would let him stay home from school and watch television. It nearly hadn't worked but his mother had always had a soft spot for her little boy and had convinced his father – <em>somehow – <em>that Jay's staying home for one day couldn't _possibly_ hurt anyone. "_Come on, Dyson, he just wants to watch cartoons with his mom."_

So Jay had been planted on the couch in front of the television to joyously watch the most ridiculous of children's cartoons for hours on end. Batman turned into Superman who turned into something about a talking sponge and then there was The Flash and some poorly animated series featuring dancing squirrels. Eventually everything started to blend together with voices and action mixing and matching into one super cartoon. Batman and some dancing squirrels. Or were they chipmunks? Jay didn't remember. All he knew was that he was seven-years-old and was so happily absorbed in the fact that he'd gotten to watch cartoons _all morning_ that he hadn't even heard the window being smashed upstairs.

It all happened so fast. The television was turned off so quickly that Jay barely had time to process the picture disappearing and then Tamsin had grabbed hold of him and Katie – holding one of them in each arm – and quickly secreted them inside of a nearby closet. Jay remembered his mother turning to him before she closed the door and telling him the last thing he'd ever hear her say: "_Stay here and watch your sister. And don't come out until I tell you to_."

From inside the closet Jay listened to his mother's receding footsteps until he could no longer hear them and then he listened a while longer to see if he could hear something else. From his tiptoes he peered through a broken slat in the door but he saw nothing. Beside him his little sister stood clutching her bear in both hands, her bright blue eyes looking to him as if she wanted him to tell her what to do.

"It's a game," Jay whispered to her, trying to sound happy and not scared. "Mom is hiding stuff for us to find later so we have to wait here." It was to Katie's credit that, even at four-years-old, she didn't seem to believe him one bit, but _chose_ to go along with what Jay was telling her, if only for a moment, because it was easier than trying to figure out what was really going on. It was the first time Jay remembered being thankful for his sister's kind wisdom.

There was a thud from somewhere above them and then another and another. Jay's eyes grew wide in his head. He turned to look at Katie who was clutching her bear tight into her chest and looking at him like she might cry.

"Don't cry," Jay begged her. "Please don't cry."

Footsteps were falling down the stairs now and Jay got back up on his tiptoes to peer through the slat into the living room. He never saw their faces but he remembered three men cloaked in black dragging his incredibly strong mother along behind her. There was a gun in one of the men's hands and the other two were carrying samurai swords.

"Don't make this more difficult than it has to be," one of them said.

There was movement beside Jay. For a moment he thought it was one of the men standing too close to the door, but then he realized that it was Katie trying to get out and see what was happening. He didn't remember grabbing Katie or clasping one of his hands over her mouth to quiet her but that was what he was doing when his mother's terrified blue eyes locked onto his. She was dead a moment later; her throat had been slit open by one of the men with swords, who then proceeded to ransack the place around her dead body.

His father arrived some time later. Jay was never sure when he did or for how long Jay had been standing in that closet next to his sister, their mother's body mere feet from them, but he remembered his father shaking him back into reality with the tightest hug Jay had ever received. Jay and Katie were wrapped into blankets within minutes of the police arriving and taken down to the station at their father's insistence. "_You'll be safe there"_, Jay had heard him say. It was later on at the police station that Dyson had sat down on a bench beside Jay and asked him for the first – and _only_ – time: "How much did you see?"

"I didn't see anything," Jay had lied.

* * *

><p>At not even sixteen-years-old Jay had already started to feel like the world was against him. His father had married his aunt Kenzi and had another child with her: a beaming baby boy named David. Neither of these things outwardly bothered Jay but when combined with the murder of his mother years later they <em>did<em> change his father into someone else. Dyson had become overly protective to the point that Jay was often forbidden from even stepping outside without supervision. It was wholly unreasonable and started up a fiery rebellious streak within Jay. Authority be damned.

It was a midsummer's morning when Dyson got the call from Trick to come down to the Dal and collect his drunken son. "_You're drinking now?" _Dyson had shouted as he lifted Jay off the stool and dragged him outside. "_What happened to your job?"_ There was no job, not any longer. Jay had gotten tired of the boss riding his ass about everything, so he'd quit. He still remembered Dyson's face when he'd told him. His father was both frustrated and disappointed. _So disappointed_. It had nearly broken Jay apart.

The back seat of the car was beltless and covered in nothing but hard leather. As Dyson had thrown Jay back there he had said to his son, "_I think it's time you learn a lesson."_ They drove around for hours with Jay slipping and sliding all over the back, Dyson watching him struggle from the rearview mirror. At every stop sign or red light Jay would jar forward and hit his forehead on the cage that separated the back of the vehicle from the front. Each time his father laughed and then kept going. He was working a case and, _no_, he wasn't sure when he was going to be done. Jay was just going to have to deal with it.

Three hours later Dyson stopped the car in an alley behind some bar. He looked at Jay through the rearview mirror and told him he'd back _right back_ before he got out and locked Jay inside the car. Jay struggled for a moment, frantically jiggling the door handle in an attempt to get out of the vehicle, but his attempt was futile. Sitting in the back seat of that car Jay had become as hopeless as a _criminal_. There was no escaping for him. He was trapped.

Jay counted the seconds, then the minutes, that his father was gone while staring at the ceiling of the car. Twenty, Thirty, Forty minutes passed before Jay heard the _clang clang_ of something heavy hitting something metal and bolted upright. Two gigantic Fae men hovered over his father who was struggling to get to his feet.

"Dad!" Jay screamed from inside the car. "Dad!"

But there was no point. Dyson couldn't hear him because Jay's voice was muffled behind the glass. Instinctively Jay reached forward for the door handle, having forgotten that he was trapped inside, and gave it several hard jiggles as the men started to beat his father. He kicked the door and slammed his body into it, trying to force it open in any way that he could. But nothing worked.

"Dad!" Jay screamed again, tears now falling in his eyes. "Dad…"

A barrage of _human_ police officers arrived two hours later, but by then Dyson was already dead. They pulled Jay out of the back seat of the car, tears still burning his eyes, and asked him if he knew what happened, if he could _describe_ who had done this to Dyson.

"I didn't see anything," Jay had lied. "I was taking a nap."

* * *

><p>Still covered in wet clothes Jay arrived at his room and collapsed onto his bed. His mind kept racing to the rhythm of the ceiling fan, a constant <em>whir whir whir<em> as images of David passed in front of his eyes. For the longest time David had been the _only_ thing that mattered to Jay. He had taken it upon himself after their father's death to make sure that David was _safe_ and _happy_, even if that meant sacrificing his own happiness to make it happen. Such as with the mural that Jay had painted on David's wall, which he had research endlessly and plotted out piece-by-piece to ensure the perfection that David deserved. Painting that mural had taken every spare second of Jay's days and left him feeling exhausted and miserable. But it was for David, and that was all that mattered.

Jay sighed, a miserable heartbroken sigh, and sat himself up. Two floors below him David's life was hanging in the balance and the scale was leaning heavily in one direction and one direction only. Jay knew it. He knew it the moment he had reached David in the woods and picked up his limp body. There was simply _too much_ blood seeping out of him. Tears started to form again in Jay's eyes. He would do _anything_ to trade places with David. Let him be the one lying on that cold metal slab instead. Let him be the one floating away from this mortal coil. Let him…

It was then that Jay remembered that there _was_ a way for him to trade places with David: the Guardian Candle. Only a dozen of them existed in the entire world and Jay _had_ one of them. He'd won it from Ryker Stahl just last year. It was blacker than night and stood a foot tall with tiny splashes of neon green and blue and violet hidden within it. Fae lore said that if a _truly selfless_ _soul_ lit the candle they could make a trade with the Fates and bring someone back from the brink of death. It was the miracle that Jay needed with only one caveat: the user sacrificed themself to an eternity in Hel. It seemed a hopeless decision but, in fact, it was an easy one for Jay to make. He could endure _anything_ thrown at him if it meant that David got to live.

* * *

><p>The tunnels were Charlie's secret haven away from everything and Jay knew that with David lying near death she would undoubtedly be hiding away in them. And she could, too, <em>hide away<em> in them. She knew these tunnels like the back of her hands. She was the _only_ one that could manage to navigate them without getting lost and needing to call out for help. On a dare she'd led Jay through them once blindfolded, laughing the entire time. Finding her down here would seem to most to be impossible. But Jay knew Charlie and knew the exact location she'd be: the mausoleum.

The mausoleum was a misnomer. No one was actually buried there. It was more of a place where Charlie would go whenever she needed to be alone, whenever she wanted to talk to her mothers as if they weren't dead. She'd taken Jay there twice before. Each time he'd sat in the corner of the hidden room silently watching her as her lips moved but words refused to come out. He'd wondered what she was saying to them and once had nearly asked her but _privacy_ was something Jay knew Charlie needed and so he hadn't.

It took him a while to find the room in the dark corridors of the tunnels with only the light of the guardian candle to guide him but Charlie was there when he did, sitting alone in the corner while running a silver necklace through her fingers. She looked up when he entered, a momentary flash of anger on her face that quickly disappeared when she saw the light of the guardian candle held between Jay's hands.

"I did a thing," Jay whispered, his voice surprisingly calm.

There was a stunned look on Charlie's face as she slowly raised herself off of the floor. She kept her eyes glued on Jay the entire time.

"What…? Why…?" she stuttered out.

"I needed to," Jay responded. He watched motionless as tears formed in Charlie's eyes and started to fall down her cheeks. She looked down at the guardian candle in his hands and then turned away. Jay sighed, a sad and sorry sigh, and placed the guardian candle down on the floor beside him before he reached out to place a hand on Charlie's back. "I know."

"How long?" she asked, slowly turning back around to face him.

"An hour, maybe two," he responded.

"You're so calm," Charlie whispered.

"I'm not scared to die," Jay told her, reaching up a hand to gently brush away her tears. "I'd do anything for those I love."

"A truly selfless soul," Charlie chuckled, reciting the old Fae lore back to him. "It describes you perfectly."

Charlie closed her eyes and leaned her cheek into Jay's palm for a second before turning slightly and placing a kiss there. It was gentle, it was slow, it was quick, and it was everything for just a moment. When she opened her eyes the two shared a brief and innocent smile that held more in it than anything they'd ever said to each other. Charlie moved slowly forward, placing a hand on Jay's shoulder as she leaned up to kiss him. It was deep and meaningful and felt like flying, but it wasn't what Jay wanted so he placed his hands on Charlie's shoulders and slowly pushed her away.

"What's wrong?" she asked him, stunned.

"I have too much respect for you to do that," he responded.

There was a pause as Jay watched his words sink in with Charlie. It was possibly the first time that she had ever been rejected for sex and the fact that it was _him_ doing the rejecting probably surprised her more than she'd be willing to admit. But Jay's feelings for Charlie were not a joke. This was not a game that he was trying to win. He _really_ loved her and it would've degraded those feelings for him to allow her to have sex with him just because he was going to die.

"Jay," she whispered.

"Charlie," he responded, holding out his palms to her. "Would you dance with me? Just this once?"


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter Nineteen

* * *

><p>It was an hour before dawn and Ethan was standing in the basement just outside the infirmary where David was fast asleep, a machine attached to his chest beeping to assure Ethan that he was still alive. Stubborn moonlight gleamed through the windows and lit up odd surfaces while casting shadow across others. On a cot nearby his mothers lay fast asleep, Lauren's hand gently placed across Bo's stomach as if to protect the unborn child growing inside of her: him. It was an odd sensation; for days now Ethan had been watching as his mother walked around, not knowing that the child she was carrying was standing right beside her.<p>

"How is he?" Charlie whispered from beside him. He hadn't even heard her enter the Firehouse, hadn't even heard her walk over to him, but that was unsurprising. Charlie could be very stealthy when she wanted to be.

"He's still asleep, which means he's alive, at least," Ethan responded, his eyes glued on the infirmary door as he spoke.

"He'll be fine by sunrise," Charlie stated.

"What do you mean?" Ethan said, finally turning to look at his sister. Though the moonlight only illuminated half of her face, Ethan could see that her eyes were bloodshot and that her cheeks were red and puffy from tears.

"A truly selfless soul," Charlie whispered.

That was all that Charlie had to say for Ethan to know that Jay was no longer with them. They'd fretted over the guardian candle for day's after Jay had won it off of Ryker Stahl, with Jay arguing for keeping it for a "rainy day" and Ethan arguing for its destruction. "_We aren't God_," he'd said. "_Who are we to get to decide who lives and who dies?_" In the end, of course, Jay had won out by promising that _he'd_ only use the guardian candle to sacrifice himself in favor of a truly _pure_ soul. What he'd always failed to understand – as far as Ethan was concerned – was that _he_ was the truly pure soul.

"I need to tell Katie," Charlie whispered.

"I'll do it," Ethan offered, placing a hand gently on his sister's shoulder.

"No, she should hear it from me," Charlie responded, giving Ethan a thankful, half-hearted smile.

* * *

><p>As Charlie disappeared up the dark stairway Ethan heard the distinct sound of a body shifting atop a small cot. He turned to see his succubus mother lacing her fingers with the hand placed gently on her abdomen and then shifting herself out from under it.<p>

"What's going on?" Bo asked him as she sat up.

"Nothing," he responded.

"You're a terrible liar," Bo replied, standing up and walking over to him.

"Yeah, I really am," he laughed.

There was a pause as mother and son stood together, neither sure of what to say next. Ethan kept his eyes trained on the infirmary door, torn apart by the happiness he felt knowing that David was on the other side of it _healing_. He sighed.

"Jay passed away an hour ago," Ethan whispered.

"What? What happened?" Bo asked, obviously confused. "Why didn't you wake Lauren for help?"

"There's nothing she could've done," Ethan responded kindly, turning to look at his mother. "He traded his life for David's."

"I don't understand," Bo said.

"I know," Ethan sighed. "And it's maybe too complicated for me to explain right now."

Ethan paused again, lost in his own thoughts. He glanced over at Lauren, still fast asleep on the cot, before taking two steps towards the infirmary door and cracking it open. David was still fast asleep, lying in the same position he'd been in an hour ago. Nothing appeared to have changed when, in fact, everything had. Ethan sighed, closed the infirmary door again, and then locked it.

"When everyone gets here we're going to go say our goodbyes to Jay," Ethan said, slowly turning around to look at his mother again. "I'll explain everything when we get back."

* * *

><p>Charlie walked them through the darkness of the tunnels with Katie standing by her side the entire time, everyone else following closely behind. After a while Ethan noticed that Katie did not appear to be in any way sad. He would've thought that she was in shock over the entire situation – and, perhaps, she was – but then he noted that she was constantly turning her head to glance at Charlie and had a mixed concerned-jealous look on her face. It was clear that there was something else going on inside her head.<p>

After a dozen left-and-right turns Charlie stopped abruptly in the middle of a dark stone hallway and turned towards the wall. It took a while for Ethan to realize what she was doing: shifting a false wall off to the side to reveal a hidden room. The reveal of this hidden chamber surprised Ethan, who had never known the tunnels to be anything more than a twisted maze of dark hallways. But, really, he shouldn't have been surprised because the tunnels belonged to his sister who, deep down, was exactly like them: an enigma.

On the floor, at the corner of the room, lay Jay's body, eyes closed and arms folded perfectly across his chest. It was a sight that Ethan was wholly unprepared for – his young cousin's lifeless body laid out before him – and it took everything inside of him not to break down in that moment and start to cry. While he and Jay had never been awfully close, Ethan had a certain respect for the man that Jay was growing into: someone who put the well-being of others above his own and believed, deep down, that there was some good in everyone.

While Ethan reflected on this he noticed that Katie was standing tucked away in a dark corner, her arms folded across her chest and her eyes glued to the floor. It was an obvious disconnect, a refusal to deal with the fact that her brother was dead, and Ethan wondered if he should walk over and hug her. Charlie, meanwhile, had begun to cry again, a loud and obviously pained cry. Ethan found himself torn apart: Katie who had just lost her brother and seemed unable to cope or Charlie who seemed hopelessly lost and in desperate need of comfort? It was then that Dyson moved forward and wrapped Charlie up in a tight hug, making the decision for him.

"Katie," Ethan whispered when he was close enough to her. She didn't move or flinch or do anything, really, to acknowledge she'd been spoken to, she just continued to stare at the floor. Ethan raised a hand to her shoulder and whispered to her again, "Katie?"

"What?" she asked, looking up at him with a confused look on her face.

"You need to say goodbye," Ethan whispered. He looked around briefly, taking stock of the room and everyone's location in it before he continued talking. "You and I both know that Jay has enough Valkyrie in him that he'll disappear soon."

There was a flash of sadness, a brief acknowledgement that Katie registered what Ethan had just said to her, though he still wondered if she quite grasped what was going on or if she was simply reacting to the sad tone in his quiet voice.

"You'll regret it if you don't say goodbye, Katie-bear," Ethan whispered.

"I can't," Katie whispered.

"Yes, you can," Ethan assured her. "I know you can."

There was a slight nod of Katie's head before she stepped cautiously forward towards Jay's body. It was a sight that Ethan was hoping he'd never have to see: the most broken-hearted among them having to say goodbye to the last remaining member of her family. He wasn't sure how she managed it, but was sure that her jealousy had somehow blinded her to reality and kept her immune from really feeling the weight of what was happening to her.

* * *

><p>They were walking back to the Firehouse, moments later, everyone lost in their own thoughts, when Ethan noticed Charlie up ahead with a look of utter heartbreak in her eyes. It was a look he'd only seen on his sister's face once: the day after that their mother had died. Ethan remembered quite clearly; everyone had been coming up to him and Charlie to give their <em>condolences<em> and to remind them that everything was going to be _okay_. It was somewhere in the third hour of this parade that Charlie had broken down into a hysterical mess of tears, unable to continue keeping up the illusion that she was perfectly together.

"Katie," Ethan said. "Can you bring everyone inside, please? I need to talk to my sister."

It was a painful request, Ethan knew, not just because Katie had just lost her own brother but, also, because Ethan was asking her to sit awkwardly alone with their parents who were starting to figure things out, instead of allowing her to be the one that spoke with Charlie. But Ethan knew that, no matter how much Katie cared about his sister, she would be unable to handle whatever mental breakdown Charlie was about to have and so he hoped, beyond all reason, that Katie would acquiesce to his request. For a moment it appeared to Ethan that young Katie was going to fight him on his appeal. He watched as she looked over at Charlie, knowing full well that something must be wrong if Ethan wanted to speak with her alone. Ethan watched as she took a slow step towards the older girl but then, by some luck, Katie paused and looked back over to Ethan, who was staring at her with pleading eyes. She nodded to him and walked with everyone the rest of the way back to the Firehouse.

"Charlie," Ethan whispered, placing his hands on his sister's shoulders. Ethan could hear the unmistakable sound of stifled tears and feel stubborn tremors reverberating through his sister's petite frame. "It's okay, it's okay," he whispered to her.

"It's not, its really not," she choked out, turning around to look at him. Ethan dropped his hands to his side as he took a good look at her. Charlie's cheeks were wet and burning red and her deep brown eyes were bloodshot. It was clear that she had fallen apart – _hard _– the moment that everyone had reached the Firehouse and disappeared inside.

"I know," Ethan said. "I know."

"He was in love with me," Charlie cried, her voice becoming louder with each word she spoke. "He was in love with me and I _knew_ it. I knew _exactly_ how he felt about me, E." She paused here, staring directly at Ethan for a moment as if to gauge his reaction to what she was saying, as if she were searching for some sort of emotional cue from him before she turned away and kept going. "I led him on," she continued. "What kind of person _does_ that?"

Tears were falling faster now, dripping from Charlie's face and staining her shirt as she struggled to keep herself composed. Ethan wanted so desperately to reach out and grab her and hold her close to him, to just _hug_ her, but felt that she hadn't yet reached her _rock bottom_ moment and that it would've been futile for him to hug her before she did.

"What's wrong with me?" she asked him, finally falling apart and giving up on trying to prevent the inevitable breakdown.

"Hey, hey," Ethan whispered, placing his hands back onto her shoulders and turning her to face him. "Listen to me. There's absolutely _nothing_ wrong with you. Okay?"

It was a truth that Charlie obviously didn't believe. But underneath all of her self-sabotage and all of her stubbornness Ethan truly believed that his sister had a truly beautiful and forgiving soul merely masked by her perceived flaws. His only wish was that she could see that, too.

* * *

><p>"My name is Ethan," he said, looking out at the five faces sitting before him as he correctly identified himself for the first time. "Ethan Patrick Dennis."<p>

It was such a simple sentence. It was such a small thing. Just saying his name out loud. But he felt an incredible relief when the words exited his mouth and an incredible fear as he watched the information sink in for everyone else. It wasn't that they were angry or anything. No, it was a panorama of every other emotion that Ethan saw laid out before him. His aunt Tamsin looked confused and shocked and conflicted over whether or not to believe him. His aunt Kenzi looked surprised and then _very_ excited, smiling as wide as he thought he'd ever seen her smile. His uncle Dyson, who at least must've _felt_ as if this information was forthcoming, nodded an unsurprised and approving nod in his direction. And then there were his mothers, who flashed through every mix of shocked and happy and proud imaginable. It pleased him, in some odd way, finally seeing that they weren't disappointed in the man that he'd become.

"It's nice to meet you," Ethan whispered, looking over at his mothers with a crooked half-smile.

"I don't believe this," Tamsin grumbled from the corner.

"I suppose it is pretty unbelievable," Ethan laughed, glancing over at Tamsin. "But it's the truth. I swear."

"And why should we believe that you're Bo's kid? Huh?" the Valkyrie tested.

"You don't have to trust me," Ethan responded with a partial shrug of his shoulders. "But they do," he finished, pointing to his mothers sitting together on the couch. "And that should be enough."

"Tamsin," Bo said calmly as she turned to look at her. "He's telling the truth."

"And how do you know?" Tamsin challenged.

"I just do," Bo responded, turning back to look at Ethan with a slight, knowing smile on her lips. It was a small thing, an unspoken little secret, an understanding between Ethan and Bo and Lauren that made him oddly happy. And, yet, oddly sad.

"I have a nephew!?" Kenzi excitedly blurted out, interrupting Ethan's thoughts.

"And a niece," Ethan laughed. "Charlie."

"That's kind of a dude's name," Tamsin mumbled.

"It's Charlotte," Lauren corrected before Ethan could speak.

"Charlotte McKenzie," Ethan added.

"McKenzie!?" Kenzi shouted. "Bo-Bo, you're going to name your daughter after me!?"

Ethan laughed. He wasn't sure if what his aunt had just said was a question or a statement but he felt incredibly happy at her excitement. It was something he hadn't seen in quite a long time and he hadn't realized how much he missed it.

"Okay, fine," Tamsin grumbled, her disbelief starting to melt away. "And who are the other three?"

"They're my children," Dyson muttered. It was the first time he'd spoken and everyone's eyes immediately turned towards him, a mixture of shocked uncertainty and awkward sympathy in their eyes. The room hung still for a moment as everyone seemed to be searching for words to say and then came the question that Ethan was hoping he'd be able to avoid answering.

"Who's their mom?" Kenzi asked, the previous excitement in her voice quickly disappearing, replaced by the slightest touch of irritation, as she looked at Dyson and then turned her eyes over to Ethan. Ethan found himself closing his eyes and raising his hands up as if to surrender.

"I don't think you want to know," Ethan said, cracking one eye open to look at his aunt. But she did, it was clear based on the look she was giving him. And he'd always caved to that look. Damn.

"Well," he said nervously, opening his other eye to look at Kenzi. "Jay and Katie are Tamsin's…"

The news dropped and Ethan watched as Kenzi and Tamsin reacted at the same time. For Tamsin there was shock and sadness. Tamsin had always claimed to not want children – this was something Ethan had heard her say once when he and Jay were playing together – but it was clear to Ethan that she _did_ want them by her reaction to the news that not only did she have children but that one of them was now dead. For Kenzi there was a flash of anger as she slid herself away from Dyson, not even turning to look at him as she did. It was an act that surprised everyone else in the room but not Ethan. He'd heard the stories and he'd done the math. Before Jay had surprisingly come along, his uncle Dyson and aunt Kenzi had been at the start of a "sort of relationship." Ethan was pretty sure he'd just watched it end before his eyes.

"And David?" Lauren inquired, though Ethan was sure she already knew the answer.

"He's Kenzi's," Ethan said, looking towards his aunt and hoping that the knowledge that she had an _amazing_ son would help to calm her down. For a moment Ethan thought he saw a subtle smile play on her lips with the same sort of proud look that his own mothers had given him just moments before.

"I know this is a lot," Ethan said. "But we need your help and I figured the best way to get it was by telling everyone the truth."

* * *

><p>He had left them all alone to digest the information that he had just given them. It was a lot, after all, being given the knowledge that not only had they been transported to the future but also that they had been transported to their <em>children<em>. And Dyson and Tamsin having to deal with the fact that Jay – their _son_ – was now dead and that they had been there to witness it. Ethan could only begin to imagine what was going through all of their heads right now and he had barely even cracked the surface with what he'd told them.

Somewhere upstairs Charlie and Katie were still unraveling the difficulties of their tumultuous relationship, which was perhaps made even more complicated by the fact that Jay – Katie's brother and Charlie's ex – was now dead. Though the two made every attempt to hide their relationship away from him because, Ethan imagined, they believed he would disapprove, he had, in fact, always known. It was a positive side effect of his perceived stoicism that allowed him to appear not to notice or care about what went on around him. And while he would never presume to get involved in his sister's love life, it was his belief that she suffered from a broken heart, shattered by the death of their mother, which prevented her from truly loving the one person that could love her best.

At present Ethan was sitting atop the basement stairs, elbows resting on his knees, head in his hands as he stared to the darkness below. Though David was better, Ethan wanted to make sure that he was close enough to jump into action should something go wrong. But, also, he wanted to be near his parents whose world he just cracked open and near his sister who he imagined was falling apart. His position on the stairs was the perfect balance between all of these distressing locations.

"Hey," came a voice behind him. It was a voice that he didn't know that well, but, yet, knew well all the same. It was his mother, Lauren, coming to sit beside him on the stairs.

"Hey," Ethan responded. "How are you?"

"Still trying to wrap my head around everything," she told him with a quirky half-smile.

"I know," Ethan sighed, managing his own quirky half-smile.

There was a pause, a stillness that wrapped itself around them, mother and son, sitting together for the first time. Ethan found himself enjoying the silence, enjoying the rhythm of his mother's breathing and his own steady heartbeat. It was a moment that he'd been imagining for a very long time and he couldn't believe it had finally come.

"I never got the pleasure of getting to know you," Ethan whispered, eyes focused directly in front of him. "Neither did Charlie. But I think she would benefit greatly from having you around."

"Ethan, I don't understand," Lauren stammered. "What are you trying to say?"

There was a pause as Ethan struggled to find the words to say what he so desperately needed to, but nothing that came to mind seemed right. Everything seemed to him to be so crass and flippant, as emotionless as he was often perceived to be.

"You die giving birth to Charlie," Ethan finally said, turning, finally, to look at Lauren. There were tears in his eyes and he began to cry as he spoke, the first time he'd cried in such a long time. "I need you to not. I need you to live," he choked out.

There was a pause as Ethan watched his mother taking in his words and trying to process them. The weight of what he'd just told her was enormous: she would be the one to be pregnant with Charlie, she would die having her, and she would never get to see her children grow up. Ethan didn't know how it was that his mother didn't burst at this news. Or, better yet, how she hadn't burst earlier when he'd first introduced himself to everyone. But here she was, sitting beside him, pulling him into her arms and rubbing his back and she whispered to him. It melted his heart.

"It's going to be okay," Lauren whispered.

"When it's time," Ethan struggled, still choking on tears. "You need to find a man named Sam Lawton. He'll help us."


	20. Chapter 20

**A/N & Disclaimer:** Several of the lines (mainly those spoken by Katie) are borrowed from a song that I really love by a band called _Startisan_. Normally I would not borrow dialogue, or anything else, but this particular song really feels so much like a Charlie/Katie anthem that I felt I had no choice. Just to be clear though: my use of the band's song lyrics is not for any sort of monetary gain.

* * *

><p>Chapter Twenty<p>

* * *

><p>She told herself that every time was the last time, but one last time always became one more time and another return to the scene of the crime. It was two naked bodies falling on fresh bed linens as they entwined together in love, or lust, over and over again like a broken record. And then the morning would come smelling of sun-drenched sex and vanilla with one of them making a hasty exit and the other one breaking apart as she was left behind. It was an old film on the same loop. It began the same and it ended the same every time. And it hurt Katie more than she could ever begin to explain because she <em>loved<em> Charlie but felt like she was just someone for Charlie to _use_. They'd fought about it before; it was the core issue of their odd relationship that while Charlie continuously instilled false hope in Katie, she was always seeking freedom from the life that she wasn't yet ready to choose: a monogamous long-term love. Katie knew this. She knew _all_ of this. So why was it that whenever Charlie came to her she never refused?

And now here they were, again, standing face to face in Katie's bedroom, playing the same broken record all over again. Charlie was adrift after Jay's death, lost not in a way that a friend should be but in the way that someone who loved the deceased would be. It burned inside of Katie. It burned so hot that she hadn't even stopped to process the fact that Jay was her _brother_, that it was her _brother_ that was dead, it was her _brother_ that they'd all just said goodbye to for the last time. No, Katie was lost in whirlwind of intrusive thoughts: _why is she so broken up over his death_ and _what did they do before he died_?

"Do you keep me around just to keep yourself amused?" Katie blurted out the question; her voice was louder than she'd anticipated it being and she felt nervous at her own words. Did she really want an answer?

"Are you kidding me right now?" Charlie asked her defensively.

"No, I'm not," Katie responded quickly, hardly having time to process what was going on, hardly realizing that she was starting a fight with the woman she loved and at the worst possible time.

"Katie, please, I don't want to fight right now," Charlie begged. She was still hysterically crying, quite obviously in a lot of pain and anguish, and a part of Katie wanted to run over to her and just wrap her up in a sweet embrace and tell her that everything was going to be fine. But a part of Katie was also _tired_ of the back-and-forth, the refusal to admit to any feelings whatsoever, the false hope she received every time.

"Then just tell me," Katie replied. "If you're not in love with me then just tell me so."

"Katie, please," Charlie begged again.

"Why don't you love me the way I love you?" Katie asked, pain and anger seeping out into her voice. Tears started streaming down her face now, rivers of salt that burned her skin and blurred her vision. "Why can't you just tell me how you really feel?"

"Katie!" Charlie screamed. Her bottom lip trembled and her deep brown eyes were a flooded with tears but, still, she stared directly at Katie, begging the younger girl to stop. But it was too late. Katie couldn't stop now no matter how much she wanted to.

"Just tell me, tell me why you keep winding me in only to let me go," Katie pleaded. There was a still silence as the two girls stared at each other in disbelief, tears in both their eyes. While Katie furiously and desperately wanted answers, Charlie was looking for an immediate exit from the escalating situation.

"Do you want me to guess?" Katie demanded, a hint of sadistic laugher in her voice. "Well it can't be the chase you love because I've never run. And it can't be a game cause you've already won…"

"Katie, please," Charlie cut her off, begging, again, for her to stop.

"No!" Katie shouted. "How many years have I wasted just hoping for you to change? For you to just wake up one day and need me the way I need you?"

"Katie, why are you doing this?" Charlie whispered.

"If you don't love me just _tell me_. Just, please, stop leading me on, Charlie," her voice was back to normal now and though Charlie was still in tears Katie felt oddly triumphant. She'd finally stood up for herself. She'd finally called Charlie out on the many levels of bullshit that she'd been subjected to for the past three years.

"I've never said that I _don't_ love you," Charlie responded.

"But you've never said that you do," Katie snapped back.

"So, what? You're going to force me to tell you before I'm ready?" Charlie asked.

"It's been three years, Charlie," Katie calmly responded. "If you're not ready now, you're never going to be."

There was a pause as Charlie turned slightly away from Katie and began wiping tears from her eyes. With each second that passed more and more tension formed between them. Katie watched as Charlie appeared to be considering her options, trying to figure a way out of the situation, but then realized that it was too late. It was clear that this was the make-or-break moment of their relationship. The train had left the station, the brakes had been pulled too late, and now impending doom was waiting for them, only able to be stopped by the exchange of three small words.

"It shouldn't be this hard, Charlie," Katie whispered.

"It's not," Charlie responded, turning back towards Katie. There was a pause as Katie looked at her, cheeks still puffy and red, eyes still bloodshot, but as breathtaking as ever. She had a shy half-smile on her lips that almost seemed to be begging for forgiveness and Katie almost wanted to give it to her. "You know, when this first started, you were eighteen, you'd never been with anyone, and you didn't have the slightest hope that we would go anywhere."

"I know, Charlie. I don't need a recap," Katie replied.

"You were afraid to kiss me," Charlie continued, calmly, as if she hadn't heard Katie. "And I was afraid to do anything that might make you uncomfortable because from _day one_ you mattered so much to me that I was afraid to lose you."

Katie shifted on her feet, annoyed by the history lesson that Charlie was giving her, which she perceived to be nothing more than an avoidance tactic. But it was already too late. They both knew it. So why was Charlie prolonging the inevitable? _Just end it already_.

"And then I did," Charlie said, sounding immediately hurt. "I found you in an alley with AJ Dwyer. His pants were around his ankles. His mouth was on yours."

Katie flinched uncomfortably at the memory of her affair with AJ. She had started to feel insecure in her relationship with Charlie, who was older and, thus, much more experienced. To deal with her insecurities Katie started avoiding having sex with her and had instantly felt the dark pull of death shift her moods. It was just like before only darker and more painful. This is when she had turned to AJ Dwyer – Hawk Brother and major asshole – for relief. She'd meet him in abandoned buildings after the sun came up and the two would quickly have sex. It was quick and simple and there were zero feelings involved. But that didn't change anything. It certainly didn't erase the look on Charlie's face the time she'd caught them together or the look on her face for so many days and weeks and months after as Katie tried to gain her forgiveness.

"God, Charlie, I've already apologized for that a million times," Katie cried out.

"I know, I know you have," Charlie responded. "I'm not perfect, Katie, but neither are you. And that's why we work so well together."

Charlie paused here. The distance between them had somehow grown shorter as she'd been talking and Katie now felt Charlie's hands on her hips.

"I _do_ love you," Charlie whispered, slowly, enunciating each word with great care. "And I know that it's taken me a long time to say that to you but I want you to know that it's true."

The words echoed in Katie's ears but they did not satisfy her the way that she thought they would because they allowed something else to come forward in her mind. Perhaps it was the thought that she'd finally won, that she'd never again have to compete for Charlie's affections with Jay ever again that did it. But it wasn't the fact that Charlie had finally said the words to her that made this true… it was the fact that her brother was dead. Jay wasn't there to compete with anymore and the second this finally sunk into Katie's head she fell into Charlie's arms and began uncontrollably crying like she'd never cried before.

"I know," Charlie whispered.


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter Twenty-One

* * *

><p>The knowledge was bittersweet. But, really, what else was it supposed to be? They'd just been told that the individuals they'd been with day-in and day-out since they arrived were their <em>children.<em> The news filled Bo up to bursting: her and Lauren had talked for hours about the family they wanted to have and this proved that they had that. But this future was Hel. It was death and destruction and not at all the world that Bo wanted Ethan and Charlotte to grow up in. It was her worst fear come to life and Bo wondered if there was any chance it could be changed or were they fated to forever play the same roles over and over again? Would they always die and leave their children to fight this battle alone? Could they stop the Fae War from ever starting? Was Jay destined to sacrifice his life over and over again?

The room had grown cold and silent. Tamsin was now standing in a corner having what Bo could only assume was a deep and meaningful inner monologue with herself. Kenzi was teetering on the far edge of the other couch, as far from Dyson as she could get, her arms folded across her chest, blank look her eyes. She hadn't moved or said a word since Ethan had left the room and Bo was so caught off guard by the additional revelation that her best friend was in a romantic relationship with Dyson that she wasn't sure what to say to her. And Dyson. Oh, Dyson. Other than the sullen admission that Jay, Katie, and David were his he hadn't said anything either. He'd glanced briefly and longingly at Kenzi, but when it became evident that she wasn't going to turn in his direction or say anything to him he'd turned his eyes towards the wooden floor and his boots. Lauren had left the room a while ago, whispering to Bo that she wanted to go and check on David and see if he was okay but promising that she would be back shortly. It was just like Lauren; even after being given the shocking news that their children were living in a war zone she still cared most about being a doctor and checking on her patient.

It was then that Charlie drifted into the room and Bo took her first look at the girl not as just some random stranger that had been helping them out but as her _daughter_. Charlie was awkwardly graceful; she walked in a way that made her appear clumsy but never actually missed a step. Her posture was slightly slumped and nervous, as if she were hoping that no one would take notice of her. She clearly lacked confidence in herself and Bo wondered why that was because in Bo's eyes she appeared so beautiful. Her eyes were deep and sorrowful but hid within them hints of momentary happiness and a fierce determination. She had Lauren's strong jawline and Bo's dark, shimmering hair. And when she spoke Bo noticed the way she enunciated each word with a special care.

"Katie needs you," Charlie said, standing directly in front of Dyson. There was something about the way that Charlie had pronounced _Katie_ that felt so different than anything else Bo had previously heard her say. At first, Bo couldn't quite put her finger on it. It was more than just simple emphasis or added emotion because she was saying the name to the girl's father. It was more than the care that a close friend or family member would show. It was unique, whatever it was, and it lit up a dozen questions in Bo's mind about what was going on between Charlie and Katie. But it also elicited a surprising reaction from Bo: she felt almost instantly protective over Charlie, her little girl.

Bo watched as Dyson looked up at Charlie. It was then that she realized that he'd known about her since the moment they'd landed in the future. It was the reason that he was so trusting of her when there was really no indication at all to do so. She wondered why he hadn't said anything but, yet, was thankful that he had convinced everyone to trust Charlie the way he did. Without that trust, they wouldn't be where they were right now. In the future, with their children, being given the knowledge they needed to try to rewrite this horrible future and get the lives they all wanted.

"It just hit her," Charlie continued, her voice soft. "Jay."

In a flash Dyson was to his feet, his gruff exterior seeming to shed off of him before Bo's eyes as he went into action as a father. It was weird, seeing him this way. The automatic reaction, the level of concern he had for a daughter that he barely knew. But it was nice, too. It was as if Dyson finally had that thing in his life he'd been searching for since Bo had met him: a daughter, a family. As he left the room Bo's eyes shifted over to Tamsin who was obviously torn about what to do. Bo saw the indecision in her eyes as she weighed her options: does she stay or does she follow after Dyson and go to Katie? It seemed like an easy decision to Bo: go to your daughter, hold her tight, tell her everything is going to be okay… But Tamsin didn't move. Not immediately. She stood frozen for what seemed like forever before she finally stepped forward, her motion almost making it seem like an accident, and left the room.

"I'm sorry," Charlie whispered as she sat down near Kenzi. An uncomfortable silence fell across the room again. It was Kenzi and Bo and Charlie now, two pieces of the past and one of the future, left to stare at each other. Bo wondered what it was that Charlie was apologizing for, but decided not to ask.

"Lauren…" Charlie started, then stopped, her eyes shifting to Bo. "Mom is downstairs with Ethan and David." She sighed, and shifted in her seat. Charlie was obviously struggling with the situation and had even less of an idea of how to handle it now that everyone knew the truth. She seemed to be running over her words twice before ever uttering a single syllable. "I have to tell David about Jay," she continued, turning slightly towards Kenzi. "But, I think, after… Would you like to meet him?"

Kenzi opened her mouth to speak at Charlie's question. There was the tiniest squeak, excitement struggling to escape in the place of words. Bo noticed tears were forming in her best friend's eyes as she bit her lower lip and began nodding rapidly. Of course she wanted to speak with her son. _Of course_.

* * *

><p>At the bottom of the stairs, wrapped in the deepest of conversation, stood Lauren and Ethan. It was a beautiful vision – mother and son standing so close together talking as if they'd known each other forever – and it made Bo's heart swell with more and more happiness the closer she got to them.<p>

"You'd like it, it's pretty cool," Ethan was telling Lauren, who seemed enthralled by the conversation, whatever it was about.

"What are you talking about?" Charlie asked her brother, almost as if reading Bo's mind.

"The glowworm caves," Ethan responded.

"The what…!?" Kenzi shouted.

"The glowworm caves," Ethan laughed.

There was a momentary pause as Ethan looked to Kenzi, wide smile plastered on his face, as if he were waiting for his aunt to ask him something else that would allow him to repeat the conversation he'd been having so happily with Lauren.

"I'm going to go talk to David," Charlie said to Ethan. There was a sadness in her voice that broke Bo's heart. She wished so desperately that there was something that she could do to take the pain away, but there was nothing.

"Okay," Ethan responded, the wide smile disappearing from his lips as he spoke.

Charlie nodded towards Ethan and then slowly started walking towards the infirmary door. Bo noticed a small moment where Charlie's gaze slipped and fell onto Lauren. It was odd and it made Bo realize for the first time that since they'd arrived Charlie had been avoiding looking at or even being around Lauren.

"Uhm… We can sit, if everyone wants?" Ethan nervously offered.

"I think that's a good idea," Lauren agreed.

They sat down in the corner; Bo and Lauren were on the cot they'd been sleeping on just a few hours ago and Kenzi was in a chair that Ethan pulled out of the back for her. There was a long silence. Kenzi's eyes remained locked on the infirmary door as she nervously waited for Charlie to come back out and call her in to talk to her son. Bo and Lauren kept looking at each other and then over to Ethan, who seemed almost as nervous as Kenzi. He was clearly waiting for someone to say something to him that would allow him to speak.

"Your sister…" Bo started. Ethan's eyes and ears hopefully perked up at Bo's voice. She was clearly right about his waiting to be spoken to.

"Yeah?" he asked.

"I… I… " Bo paused and laughed slightly. She had so much that she wanted to ask. So much that she was wondering about Charlie and about Ethan. She just wasn't sure where to begin. This might be the only time she got to speak to her adult children like this… What was she supposed to ask them?

"Charlie's a genius," Ethan happily offered, clearly perceiving that Bo was at a loss for words. "She's just so _unbelievably _smart. Like, she could do anything she wanted to."

Bo turned to Lauren and smiled; she was happy at the news that their daughter was as unbelievably smart as Bo had always known Lauren to be.

"She's the best little sister I could ask for," Ethan continued. "I just wish I could get her to listen to me sometimes," he added, laughing as he did.

There was a pause here as Ethan's face changed from happy to sad. It was clear by his expression that he wanted to share something but was hung up on whether or not he should. His eyes shifted from Bo to Lauren and then over to Bo again, almost as if he were seeking approval. In the end, Bo guessed, he got what he was looking for.

"She's never killed anyone," he said, his voice barely above a whisper, his eyes locked tight on Bo's. "Never."

Bo nodded, happily understanding what Ethan had just told her: Charlie had never had to go through the same pain and anguish that Bo had experienced over killing someone with her powers. It was a small thing but it was an unbelievable relief.

"Aunt Kenzi," Charlie voice came. Her head was peeking out the infirmary door and her eyes were locked on the four of them. "You can come talk to David now."


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter Twenty-Two

* * *

><p>Settled beneath the muted atmosphere was a fresh white blanket of thick snow hiding a crackling winter earth and a top-frozen lake as if discovery of either would doom this hidden paradise to destruction. It was the necessary secrecy of the location that had made it the preferred destination of escape for two kindred spirits in dire need of a space for noiseless reflection. For one that reflection involved an internal struggle, a weighty wondering of the soul, as to whether his decision to send his sister away to live her own life, free of external involvement, was the right one or the wrong one. For the other that reflection involved an early promise of a dance scholarship and the decision to accept the offer and leave her family behind or reject the offer and remain in the life she had. Though from the outside their situations seemed vastly different, both Ethan and Katie's internal debates centered on their familial love and the heavy guilt they felt weighing them down because of it.<p>

Together they stood under the dark violet expanse of night sky and experienced the circuit of radiant stars whose light bounced off the crystalline snow below their feet and illuminated their surroundings. It was a demonstration of the magic of the universe playing out before their very eyes; the miracle of light cast from so far away erasing the dark shadows that surrounded them and making everything suddenly more clear. To Katie it was like watching a performance of _Swan Lake _as acted out perfectly by the flickering and flashing stars and she couldn't possibly tear her eyes away from it. For here she found novelty in the lack of orchestral conductor and the infinite number of participants in the _corps de ballet_, whom still maintained absolute unity in spite of their immense number and the vast distance between them.

With a sharp intake of the harsh winter air and the successful reknotting of a striped jade and ochre scarf Ethan took several cautious steps over the icy bounds of earth towards Katie. Releasing his held breath from his lungs Ethan watched as it met the freezing night air, forming a wisp of colorless fog as it drifted towards Katie before disappearing on the night. There was a glossy pink flush on Katie's cheeks, undoubtedly from the declining temperature and harsh winds, and Ethan wondered if, perhaps, he should take the lead and push Katie for a retreat from the icy cold air to the warm confines of the truck they'd rode down in, where they could at least think without fear of frost-bite. But even in silence Katie seemed resolute to persist through the challenge of winter until she'd come to some sort of decision regarding the envelope gripped tightly in her left hand. And Ethan felt that any motion to dissuade her otherwise would be regarded as tactless and uncouth, so he buried his compassionate nature and committed himself back to his own silent wonderings.

In her own mind Katie weaved through thoughts both abstract and concrete: a mixture of skeptical considerations of her own mettle and an echoing of thin black-lettering on pale white paper promising her a future. _Future_. The word streaked blindly through her mind like a shooting star bolting through the aurora, shedding layers of hope behind it as it continued on across the night sky. However impossible such a thing might've seemed to Katie, her fear and uncertainty were, in many ways, unfounded. While _dancer_ had always been a term that Katie was far too modest to use in labeling herself, it was a title at once rightfully earned. She'd been taking classes since she was four and spending most nights diligently practicing her pirouettes and deboulés as if nothing else mattered on earth. So why, then, was Katie having such a hard time reconciling that a prestigious dance academy not only wanted her but was willing to pay for her to attend?

Though the wind continued to blow drifts of snow across the lake Ethan could still manage to see the intricate system of cracks splintering across the ice and branching out in every direction like a wild oak. They were cerulean fractures laced together inside hazy ice to form a massive spider's web across the still black waters that they were shielding from Ethan's tormented view. But though he wasn't unable to make out the blackness beneath the haze the ice still acted as a mirror into the last time he'd been down to the lake: his sixth autumn when he'd nearly drowned. The memory of it flashed inside of his mind: the smell of the autumn woods; the taste of the black water; the sound of his cousin crying the entire ride home. But the crying he heard now was not from inside his memory; it was beside him.

In the manner of someone at once all too familiar with the unpredictable nature of the emotions of teenage girls, Ethan sidestepped himself through the fraction of space that divided them and gently wrapped a sympathetic arm around Katie's shoulders as she sobbed. Perhaps it was simply a case of the proximity effect but, lost in her own sadness and doubt, Katie became confused by this kindness extended to her and affixed to it a love and fondness that simply wasn't there. She imagined her companion sweeping her up in his arms and kissing her the way that often happened in the movies, confessing to her in that moment that he'd secretly loved her for a while now as he carried her off into some artificial happy ending. On tiptoes she leaned over to kiss him in the awkward manner of a teenage girl who had never really been kissed before; that is to say with her eyes half-closed and her nerves preventing her from fully committing to the kiss, which was sloppy and off-center and met with the stiff lips of a truly shocked individual.

To be clear; it wasn't that Ethan did not like Katie or that, under different circumstances, he wouldn't have enjoyed kissing the girl. He'd always been quite conscious of her subtle beauty and knew, on some level, that she'd developed some sort of feelings for him. But he was an honorable young man, even at twenty, and was all too aware that she was a sixteen-year-old girl with a clouded emotional state that would've made kissing her back improper behavior. It was with this thought in his mind that Ethan dropped his sympathetic arm back down to his side and pulled himself away from Katie's now embarrassed affection. Had there not already been one present from the cold, Katie was certain that a self-conscious flush of pink would've formed itself on her cheeks at Ethan's awkwardly pulling away from her. Still, there managed to be all manner of sheepish glances exchanged and an uncomfortable coughing from Ethan as he struggled for words to tell Katie that he felt that this simply wasn't the right time.

As was typical of young girls, Ethan's polite dismissal of Katie's advances were reconstructed into a heart-broken narrative wherein he played the apathetic brute instead of the polite gentleman who'd refused to take advantage of her conflicted emotional state. While Ethan had given her a very sincere apology and a promise that he wasn't wholly uninterested in her, the words that Katie reimagined him saying were terse and ended with her being called a "little girl," a phrase that shattered her heart and framed Ethan as entirely unforgivable.


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter Twenty-Three

* * *

><p>It took a great amount of shuffling and several excuses for Lauren to finally get a moment alone with Charlotte. First, Bo had been sent in with Kenzi to talk to David. This had been painless enough. But after that a sibling squabble had erupted as Charlotte immediately tried to excuse herself to check on Katie. It was awkward but understandable, as Lauren assumed that Charlotte wanted to avoid spending time with her. In the end though, Ethan proved himself to carry more influence over Charlotte than he had led on, as she seemed willing to bow to pleas of her staying put. This was short lived, however, as Tamsin soon came tearing down the stairs to inform them – her eyes wide and clearly uncertain – that Katie was now crying in the living room and had begun asking to speak with Charlotte. The squabble between Ethan and Charlotte reemerged, with Charlotte becoming more insistent this time: "<em>Katie needs me<em>." It was an excuse that Charlotte clearly thought would win her the exit that she desired. But when it became clear that Ethan was maintaining his ground and insisting upon her staying Charlotte began to pout. It was a regression towards childish behavior, the first time that Lauren had seen her do so, and it reminded her so much of Bo when her wife desperately wanted to wiggle out of a situation.

"_I_ will check on Katie," Ethan said again. Lauren waited for Charlotte's abject refusal but there wasn't any this time. Her daughter simply lowered her eyes to the ground and sniffled in defeat.

Once Ethan and Tamsin had gone, Lauren turned to Charlotte with every ounce of motherly concern she had in her. She wanted to run over and grab her precious baby girl and just hold her tightly in her arms. She wanted to whisper to her that everything was going to turn out okay. But tears had started falling down Charlotte's cheeks the moment that Ethan had disappeared up the stairs and her arms were now folded across her chest as if she were trying to protect herself… from Lauren.

"Charlotte," Lauren whispered to her. Charlotte's eyes remained glued to the floor. Lauren saw her sniffle slightly, an awkward acknowledgement of hearing her name spoken. "Charlotte," she whispered again. "Will you come outside and talk with me?"

Charlotte stood still for one, two, thee, four seconds before responding and when she did her response was not vocal but more like a sudden kinetic charge being sent through her body. She moved forward, past Lauren, and towards the Firehouse door, without speaking or even looking up at her mother. She simply did the thing that she was asked without argument.

Lauren took a moment to glance at the infirmary door. She thought about Bo and Kenzi talking to David, who really seemed like the _sweetest_ little boy, and hoped that Kenzi could keep Bo with her long enough so that Lauren could speak with Charlotte because what she wanted to speak with their daughter about was not something that she wanted Bo to hear.

Outside Charlotte stood in the grass, staring out towards the trees that David had been attacked in seemingly lost in thought. As Lauren closed the Firehouse door behind her Charlotte turned, slowly, and made eye contact with Lauren for the first time.

"Don't have me," Charlotte whispered, her eyes filled with tears, her voice trembling.

"Charlotte," Lauren said. "Don't say that."

There was a moment's of pause; a look of incredibly sadness and endless pain fell across Charlotte's face. She seemed more upset by what she had just said to Lauren than she was when David was brought back to the Firehouse teetering between life and death. She seemed more upset by what she had just said to Lauren than when she'd led all of them through the tunnels to Jay's lifeless body.

"Don't have me," Charlotte repeated, as a person would who was demanding something that they didn't truly want but believed they needed or deserved. "I took you away from mom and Ethan…"

"Charlotte, no you didn't," Lauren responded.

It was a statement that Charlotte clearly didn't believe. She looked at Lauren as if the words that her mother had just said were a joke or as if Lauren were simply so confused that she actually believed what she was saying.

"I don't know, the math seems pretty simple to me," Charlotte responded. "I exist, you die."

Charlotte's answer was logically illogical and broke Lauren's heart to hear. In all of the Fae history that Lauren had ever heard or read, she had never found any stories of a _human_ giving birth to a _Fae_ child. She was certain that such a thing was impossible, but she was also certain that she and Bo would never have a biological child and, yet, Ethan was set to join them in six months time. Even with this, the thought that she could become pregnant – and with a _Fae_ child – had never crossed her mind. And, yet, on some level, Ethan telling Lauren that she would be the one to get pregnant with Charlotte hadn't surprised her at all. Nor did it surprise her when he told her that she was going to die giving birth to her precious daughter. After all, she was _human_ and Charlotte was Fae. But not only Fae, she was a _Dennis. _And if Lauren knew anything about Bo and her genetics – and, to be clear, she knew just about everything there was to know – it was that Bo was more than just your ordinary Fae. She was stronger. She was faster. She was better. And Lauren was _human_ and _weaker_ and had little chance of surviving a Fae pregnancy.

But that Charlotte could possibly be _responsible_ for Lauren's death was ridiculous. No, Lauren was positive that she _chose_ to have another child with Bo. And she also imagined that, by that point in time, they were well aware how the process worked and that she asked Bo if she could be the one to get pregnant. Even now, knowing the risks and the eventual outcome, Lauren couldn't imagine herself making a different decision. She _wanted_ Charlotte. She wanted to be pregnant with her and bond with her in whatever way she could. She wanted to _give_ Charlotte to Bo, who Lauren imagined would spoil her like a princess. There was no question about it. There were no other options. Lauren was going to have Charlotte.

"Charlotte," Lauren whispered. "This is not your fault."

"Yes it is," Charlotte responded.

They were both crying now, salty tears streaming from matching chocolate brown eyes. Charlotte sniffled and wiped futilely at her eyes, trying to stop the stream that Lauren was positive hadn't really stopped since Jay had died. All of this, everything that was happening, was too much for anyone to handle.

It took a minute, but after giving up on pushing her tears away Charlotte fell right into Lauren's shoulder. Instinctively, Lauren wrapped her arms around her daughter. It was one of the best feelings she'd ever had in her life: the first time she got to comfort her daughter.

"I'm so sorry," Charlotte sobbed.

"I love you," Lauren whispered.

"I love you, too," Charlotte whispered.

They stood there for a moment, Lauren holding tightly onto Charlotte and rubbing her back in an attempt to sooth her. After a while Charlotte quieted but Lauren continued still to hold her. She continued to hold her even after Bo opened the backdoor and walked over to them.

"Everything okay?" Bo asked, obvious concern in her voice.

"Everything's fine," Lauren said.

At Lauren's response Charlotte slowly pulled herself out of Lauren's arms. Her cheeks were still red and wet from tears, which had left a wet ring on Lauren's shirt. Charlotte sheepishly smiled upon noticing this. Lauren smiled loving back at her and then turned to Bo.

"God, you two look so much alike," Lauren said, the resemblance finally clicking in her brain.


	24. Chapter 24

Chapter Twenty-Four

* * *

><p>Ethan was good at a lot of things, comforting Katie simply wasn't one of them. That was Charlie's department. Always had been. But Charlie needed to stop avoiding their mother and finally talk about how she blamed herself for Lauren's death. She needed to <em>cry<em> about it, for once, and hear that the thing she'd been blaming herself for all her life wasn't actually her fault. She needed to hear Lauren tell her that she loved her for the first time. She needed to just let go. And Ethan, being the good brother that he was, needed to make sure that happened. So he argued with Charlie to make her stay downstairs with Lauren and then he went upstairs in Charlie's place and he walked over to the couch that Katie was sitting on – legs pulled tightly against her chest, face pressed into her knees as muffled sobs erupted from behind her jean clad legs – and sat down beside her and placed a hand gently on her back in a poor attempt to calm the young girl down and then he got punched in the face.

"God, damn it Katie," Ethan groaned, reaching a hand up quickly to his nose, which he could already feel was starting to bleed.

"I want Charlie," she replied.

"Well she's a little _busy_ right now," Ethan told her while inspecting the splashes of blood in his hand.

"I want Charlie," Katie mumbled again, as if she hadn't heard his response.

"Katie, she's busy," Ethan snapped. "Stop acting like a child."

Again, Katie punched him _hard_ in the face. Dyson was immediately to Katie's side, pulling her back from Ethan, trying to prevent her from taking out more of her anger on his face. Ethan waved him away. He was fine to be Katie's punching bag if that's what she needed him to be. Really, what harm was she doing? His nose would heal _eventually_ and his shirt, now spotted with blood, was replaceable. Plus, it was really his fault anyways.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to her. "I shouldn't have said that."

Katie just glared and then turned her back to him.

* * *

><p>The half hour between Katie turning her back to him and hearing five sets of footsteps ascending the stairs felt like the longest half hour of Ethan's entire adult life. Every second seemed to burn away as slowly as it possible could. The sound of Katie's stifled tears rang inside his head. Blood continued to trickle down the front of his shirt and every few seconds a sharp pain reminded him to stop trying to breathe through his probably broken nose. Tamsin kept hovering in the corner. Ethan caught her glancing at Katie several times as if she <em>wanted<em> to try and comfort the girl but simply didn't know how. And then there was Dyson, who was well meaning but didn't quite understand that his repeated attempts at talking to Katie simply weren't helping anyone. Still, Ethan let him continue to try because he understood that Dyson was a father trying to be a father without really knowing what it meant to be _Katie's_ father.

"God, damn it Katie," Charlie sighed once she'd reached the top of the stairs and saw the blood on Ethan's shirt. She was standing with David awkwardly tucked at her side and Ethan let out a short, _painful_ chuckle when he saw the boy's eyes grow wide in his head. Charlie rarely, if ever, used "inappropriate" language in front of David – not even something as common as the phrase "damn it" – so it was constantly a shock for the young boy to hear and Ethan always enjoyed his reactions, which were quite priceless.

Beside him Ethan felt Katie shifting to look at Charlie and, though he kept his eyes locked on his sister and his moms, he knew that Katie must've looked quite pitiful by the look on Charlie's face, which was the look of a caring and compassionate person that wanted to erase the other's pain. His moms, of course, did not feel the same way and looked utterly concerned by the blood on Ethan's shirt and what he could only imagine was an equally bloody and bruised face.

"It was my fault," he said, quite sincerely, while giving them the most reassuring smile that he could.

It was clear that neither of them believed him, especially Bo, who looked quite suspiciously at him before turning her eyes towards Katie. By that time though Charlie had already sat down next to Katie and had pulled her into a tight and obviously very loving embrace, complete with a gentle kiss on Katie's lips. It wasn't anything too overt, not really, but, still, Ethan was sure that everyone had picked up on the subtle cue, the announcement to the room of Charlie and Katie's relationship, and felt compelled to quickly scan the room and take in everyone's reaction: Dyson looked slightly embarrassed and Ethan wondered if this was typical of father's who'd just had their daughter kissed in front of them; Tamsin looked oddly irritated and confused; Kenzi's eyes grew as wide as David's had just moments before as she mouthed "_well then_" and looked towards Bo and Lauren; Lauren looked surprised, but happy, in some odd way; and Bo looked like the overprotective mom that Ethan knew her to be.

But then there was David who looked completely puzzled by the entire thing. Ethan knew that _romance_ and _sexuality_ were things that Charlie often tried to shield him from, especially when it came to her. She avoided being affectionate with anyone in front of him and Ethan was sure that the thought of Charlie being _that way_ with another person had never even crossed his young mind. But, also, perhaps, it had. Ethan remembered being David's age and for the first time considered that David wasn't puzzled by Charlie's kissing Katie but by feelings that he had but didn't really understand. And, of course, they were feelings for Charlie.

"Well damn," Ethan muttered under his breath.

"What?" Charlie asked him. Katie's head was now tucked into her lap and Charlie was lovingly stroking a hand through Katie's hair.

"Nothing," Ethan replied., lifting a hand to inspect the state of his still bleeding nose.

An awkward silence fell over the room; everyone was still struggling to process what they'd been told and what was happening around them. And it kept piling on, which wasn't making it any easier. _We're your kids. And, oh, yeah, Dyson and Tamsin, you just totally had to see your dead son. And Lauren? You die giving birth to my sister, your daughter. And, uhm, oh yeah, she's screwing Dyson and Tamsin's daughter… _It just went on and on in Ethan's head.

"I think it's time we get back to our own timeline," Dyson finally said.

"Yeah, but how?" Lauren asked.

"We need a plan," Bo said.

"I have a plan," Charlie said, drawing everyone's attention to her. "I'm going to kill AJ Dwyer."


	25. Chapter 25

Chapter Twenty-Five

* * *

><p>"What!?" Bo asked. She was hoping that she had misheard what Charlie had just said but was positive that she hadn't. Her daughter, who she was told had <em>never <em>killed _anyone_, had just threatened to end the life of another person with such anger and disdain that Bo wondered if the girl might've actually meant it.

"He tried to kill David," the girl responded. "He basically _did_ kill Jay. He doesn't deserve to live." Bo was stunned; every word that Charlie spoke was filled with blind fury and her eyes looked almost charcoal black but, yet, she was still lovingly stroking Katie's hair in such a way that Bo felt slightly _reassured_. Though undoubtedly – and _rightfully_ – angry, Bo saw the compassionate heart still in her daughter's chest and _knew_, somehow, that Charlie couldn't really kill someone. And that was good because one of Bo's secret fears was that her children would have to grow up like she did, never knowing who they were, and would accidentally end out killing someone. It was something that you never came back from and she desperately wanted to keep them away from that.

The room was silent as everyone looked on. Charlie's gaze had fallen on to Katie, who looked so comfortable with her head on Charlie's lap that Bo wouldn't have been surprised if the girl was asleep. Beside Charlie Ethan was gingerly probing at his nose to assess whatever damage Bo was sure Katie had caused. He didn't seem at all concerned about what his sister had just said, which confirmed Bo's belief that Charlie was simply venting her fury and couldn't possibly act on her words. And then there was everyone else, still standing by in shock, completely unsure of what to make of what Charlie had said.

After a moment Bo squeezed Lauren's hand and nodded to her wife in the most reassuring manner that she could before moving to sit on the table in front of their daughter. She wanted to get as close as she could to Charlie, to really be able to look at her and get a better sense of where the girl's head was. But while Charlie acknowledged that Bo had sat down across from her she didn't lift her eyes off of Katie. She was in some other _zone_ where nothing else seemed to exist except the girl in her lap who Bo could now see was silently crying away.

"Wait, how do you know that's who tried to kill David?" Kenzi asked.

It was a fair question. Dyson had told them that he and Jay were too far away when David had been attacked and that by the time they'd reached him whoever had done it was long gone and had taken their scent with them. And David had told Bo and Kenzi that the last thing he remembered was the sound of the ground crunching nearby and then someone grabbing him from behind. David's assailant seemed as faceless and voiceless as a specter.

"I just do," Charlie responded, eyes still glued down on Katie.

"That's not good enough, Charlie," Bo said, sounding truly motherly for the first time since they'd found out who everyone really was.

"Because I pissed him off, okay?" Charlie shouted as she looked up at Bo. "And that's the kind of thing he does. He _retaliated_."

"That doesn't mean…" Bo started. She wanted to assure Charlie that what happened to David – and, thus, to Jay – wasn't her fault, but the look on Charlie's face told Bo that she simply wasn't having any of what Bo was trying to sell her.

"Yes, it does," she snapped, cutting Bo off.

"Charlotte," Lauren said as she moved to sit beside Bo. There was something instantly maternal in Lauren's tone. It was both calm and loving and it wrapped itself around Bo and instantly seemed to calm Charlie. The angry edge disappeared from their daughter's eyes the second that she heard Lauren's voice and a sheepish embarrassment covered her face. Bo wasn't sure what it was or where it had come from but Lauren had so obviously embraced her role as Charlie and Ethan's mother that it had _changed_ something about her just ever so slightly. It amazed Bo.

"I'm sorry," Charlie whispered.

"It's okay," Lauren told her. Bo watched as she reached up to tuck a strand of loose hair behind Charlie's ear and a smile instantly covered their daughter's face.

"So how about an actual plan?" Lauren offered.

* * *

><p>The more they talked about it the more they realized that it didn't make any sense. Trick had told them that the mnemestone was an ancient Light Fae artifact that was used by Light Fae elders to view past memories right before they died. But Fae in general hardly ever passed on from old age so what was the mnemestone <em>really<em> for? And how the hell did the mnemestone even work? It had taken a prick of Bo's blood to transport the gang _twenty-five years_ from 2016 to 2041 but they knew before that it had sent Dmitri King _back_ twenty-five years from 2041 to 2016. How had _that_ happened? And where did it even come from? Trick had told them that the mnemestone was stolen out of the Light Fae archives but it didn't seem that it had ever been there to begin with. And where the _hell_ was it now?

It was now four hours later and Ethan had excused himself to go lie down; Kenzi had taken David to the kitchen to make the boy something to eat; and Katie had taken her parents to the computer room to watch the monitors for activity, leaving Bo, Lauren, and Charlie alone in the quiet confines of the living room. Like magic, Charlie shifted before Bo's eyes from the overly attentive _girlfriend_ – or whatever she was to Katie – to a little girl who just wanted her mother to hold her. She melted into Lauren's side almost instantly and Bo found herself fighting back tears as Lauren wrapped her arms tightly around their daughter and just held her close.

"It's okay," Lauren whispered to Charlie. "I love you."

It was a sentiment that confused Bo, if only for a minute. She wondered what Lauren meant by "_it's okay_" and was surprised to hear her saying "_I love you_" to their daughter with such ease. But that was foolish, really. _Of course_, Lauren was reassuring their daughter that everything was okay. And _of course_ she had no problem telling Charlie that she loved her. They clearly had a special bond, which Bo had seen the emergence of earlier. Seeing it play out over and over again before her eyes only made it more evident to Bo that Lauren was going to be a _fantastic_ mother. To Charlie, especially.

"Shhh," Lauren was whispering into Charlie's ear. "It's okay."

For the first time, Bo reached a hand up and placed it gently on her daughter's back. She felt her daughter tense up beneath her touch and then slowly start relax. After a moment she shifted herself out of Lauren's tight embrace and turned herself into Bo's arms. The feeling of her fully-grown daughter falling against her chest surprised Bo not for just how _strange_ it was but because that tiny moment made everything finally _clicked_ into place for her. As she wrapped her own arms around Charlie she finally started to feel like a mother to her daughter. The tears that she'd been fighting back before finally started to fall. Beside her Lauren smiled, a smile both awkwardly happy and incredibly sad.

"I promise you," Bo whispered to Charlie. "We're going to figure everything out."

"Okay," she heard Charlie whisper.

The start of that was figuring out what had happened when what had happened wasn't entirely evident. It was repeating the same tired circle of information over and over in hopes that something new would pop out at them in that much needed _eureka_ moment. But, no, that was cliché and stupid and only happened in movies and television shows that needed a miracle to get them out of the trap they'd set for themselves. And _this_? This was not that.

"King had the mnemestone," Lauren said. She was trying to lie out all of the facts, a difficult thing to do considering they didn't know what was true and what was false. "He activated it."

A pause, Lauren looked over to Bo, sitting with Charlie still tucked into her arms. Bo could tell by the look in her wife's arms that she was _hoping_ for that cliché television moment where everything would all of the sudden make sense.

"He transported himself to 2016," Lauren continued.

"How did he know where he'd end up?" Bo offered the question, uncertain if it was helping Lauren figure things out or making everything more complicated.

"Dumb luck?" Lauren responded.

In Bo's arms Charlie laughed. It was the first time that Bo had heard her daughter laugh and it made her smile because Charlie's laugh sounded like _little baby_ _cherubs laughing as they rang heaven's bells_. It was such a beautiful laugh.

"What's so funny?" Bo asked her, starting to laugh herself.

"Nothing," Charlie responded. She was fighting to stop herself from laughing now and was able to suppress all but the tiniest and most adorable of girlish giggles.

"That's a lie," Bo heard from the door. It was Katie, standing with her arms folded across her chest and a knowing smile on her face.

Bo felt Charlie gently pulling out of her arms and turned back just in time to see her daughter rolling her eyes at Katie's words. Then there was a heavy sigh and Charlie leaned herself back on the couch between Bo and Lauren.

"My parents are arguing," Katie told them somberly as she walked into the room and sat down on the couch opposite them.

"I'm sorry," Charlie whispered to her.

"I was thinking," Katie said, ignoring Charlie's sympathetic apology. "What if it was your blood, Charlie?"

"What!?" Bo and Lauren asked simultaneously.

"The ambush," Charlie whispered. Though Bo didn't understand what Charlie meant, it was clear that what Katie had said to her meant something to her. And whatever that something was it was probably not something that Bo really wanted to hear about. How did King get her daughter's blood?

"Charlotte," Lauren whispered.

"I was attacked," Charlie explained. "Like a month before you guys showed up. And I lost _so much_ blood."

"I bet that trap wasn't meant to kill you," Katie added. "I bet it was a set-up so that King could get your blood."

Bo's head spun from the words she was hearing. King had set up an _attack_ on her daughter and there was, apparently, a lot of blood. It infuriated Bo and made her wish that King were still alive so that she could _punish_ him for he'd done to her little girl.

"Are you okay?" Lauren was asking Charlie.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Charlie replied, a weak attempt at a reassuring smile on her face. There was a pause and a sigh before Charlie spoke again, "Even if it was my blood that activated the mnemestone, that doesn't help us with figuring out where it is now."

"Maybe it does," Dyson interrupted. He was standing in the same position that Katie had been in just moments before and it stunned Bo just how alike father and daughter really looked. "If you're so sure that AJ is the one that attacked David…"

"He has to be the one that has the stone," Charlie finished.


	26. Chapter 26

Chapter Twenty-Six

* * *

><p>It was funny, really, given how proper a Fae Dyson was to see him so burdened by the fact that his relationship with Kenzi – a <em>human<em> – was falling apart before his very eyes. But what did the dumb ass expect, really? He's familiar with Fae law. He _knows_ that Fae and humans are not meant to be together. This isn't exactly _news_. Or maybe it is. _Maybe_ Dyson was under the foolish misunderstanding that because Bo and Lauren were "allowed" to be together that it would _all of the sudden_ become okay for him and Kenzi to be together. As if. Seriously, Dyson, get your head out of your freaking ass. And Kenzi? As much as Tamsin loved the girl who had _sort of_ raised her… she knows better, too. She's _well aware _humans and Fae are not meant to be together. It's a punishable offense. Like, with death and stuff. And, no, it doesn't matter how _in love_ you think you are. The Fae Elders aren't going to care. Like, _come on_.

But they both looked so miserable and it all seemed to be Tamsin's fault, somehow, because in this _freaking warped as hell_ future Tamsin and Dyson had children together. Seriously? Tamsin wasn't sure _how_ that had happened but she was certain that she didn't run to Dyson _asking _for him to get her pregnant. Like, that was the _very last thing_ she imagined herself doing: having sex with Dyson. Gross. Freaking disgusting. Plus, children were messy and required _constant_ attention. They basically ruined your life. No, thank you. _You can have him, Kenz_!

Except, _crap_. Did this make Tamsin a terrible person? Because she was sitting beside Dyson in a room with their _daughter_ while she thought all of this. Her _freaking daughter_ was in the room with her and Tamsin couldn't stop herself from thinking how much she _did not_ want children. Like, how would that even work? She'd get pregnant, act like a freaking _incubator_ for _nine freaking months_, give birth to them – which sounds just so _unbelievably pleasant_ – and then what? Is there like a freaking switch or something? Will she just hold Jay or Katie in her arms and all the sudden _become _their mother and know what to do? Cause right now? No freaking way. That's impossible.

"Tamsin," Dyson said, jarring her out of her thoughts.

"What?" she asked.

"Stop mumbling to yourself," he told her.

"I wasn't mumbling to myself," she responded defensively.

"Yes, you were," he angrily snapped back.

"About what?" Tamsin barked.

"About how much you don't want our kids," Dyson responded, fury in his eyes.

_Shit_. Smooth move, Tamsin. Think quickly, now. There has to be _something_ you can say to back yourself out of this situation. Cause _damn it_ is this bad.

"Well, you don't want them either," Tamsin snapped.

Okay, maybe not that. That is probably the _very last freaking thing_ that should be said in this situation.

"Seriously Tamsin?" Dyson shouted.

"What? Are you trying to deny that you want to make little _human_ babies with Kenzi?" Tamsin returned. She wasn't sure why she was doing it. Why she kept opening her mouth and throwing _verbal missiles_ at Dyson. Because it wasn't making her _feel_ any better. And it certainly wasn't helping the situation any.

"Yes, I love Kenzi," Dyson declared. It was the first time Tamsin had ever heard the wolf admit his feelings out loud and it was… _whoa_. "But you and I have children together. And I take that _very_ seriously."

"Well, you shouldn't," Tamsin responded.

"What's wrong with you?" Dyson asked, standing up.

"There's nothing wrong with me," Tamsin snapped. "It's _okay_ for me to not want children."

"It is," Dyson acknowledged. "But it's not okay for you to act like this once you have them."

"I _don't_ have children," Tamsin snapped back defensively. "_We_ don't have children."

Dyson shook his head. That was _just like him_. He was always shaking his damn head like he was trying to let you know that he was _disappointed_ in you. Like he was trying to let you know that your behavior was _pathetic_ or something. Like he was trying to let you know that he was better than you. _Morally_ or something.

"You know," he said. "You didn't even realize that Katie left the room."

* * *

><p>Tamsin needed to get out of this hellhole of a future. She was all <em>twisted up<em> and just couldn't handle it anymore. Like, she had_ Valkyrie duties_ that had been calling out to her since they'd arrived and it was starting to drive her just a _little nuts_. Add in the fact that the son she didn't even want was dead and the daughter she didn't even want now _knew_ that Tamsin didn't want her and… Well, Tamsin needed a _freaking vacation_. The Bahamas sounded nice. The beach. The sand. _No Dyson_.

But she felt compelled to say cause, well, _crap_, Dyson was sort of right. Katie _was_, technically, her daughter. And the _right thing_ to do would be to help her daughter out of this _craptastic hellhole_. Or something. And Tamsin _knew _that. It was why she'd been _sort of_ trying to be a parent by like _being in the same room_ and shit. Cause that was how it was done, right? Whatever. Dyson was right. But only in this case. And only this _once_. And don't _freaking tell him_ cause then he'd get a complex or some shit. Like, _come on_.

But what _exactly_ were they supposed to do now? What's the _freaking plan_?

"We're going to have to fight AJ," Bo and Lauren's son was saying. Tamsin wasn't sure if it was a question or a freaking _statement_. She was so distracted by the fact that his nose was freaking _healed_. Like, what the freaking hell. Katie had whacked him _twice_. Dead on. But his nose was freaking _healed_. It looked like nothing had happened to him. Nothing _at all_.

"Yeah," his sister answered.

Okay, _great plan_. Now where the fuck is this dude? And does he actually _have_ the mnemestone? No one seemed to be a hundred percent sure. Something else they weren't quite sure of? How the stone freaking _works_. Like, how the _freaking hell_ are they supposed to get back to 2016? _Can_ they even get back to 2016? Like, _come on_. Does _anyone_ have some _freaking answers_?

"It shouldn't be too difficult," Dyson said.

But he was wrong. Tamsin could see it in the eyes that turned to look at him. This wasn't going to be some _easy-peasy_ mission with a _happily-ever-after_ sort of ending.

"They have an army," Bo and Lauren's daughter said.

"They have a _what_!?" Kenzi shouted. Or maybe it was Bo. Tamsin wasn't even _freaking_ sure. She was still lost on the word _army_. Like, what the _freaking hell_?

"Foot soldiers, really," Bo and Lauren's son replied. "They're kind of…"

What? _They're kind of what_!? That is _not_ any okay place to pause under _any freaking circumstances_. _God freaking damn it_. Bo, your damn kids really need to learn how to _properly freaking communicate_. Like, _come on_. Didn't you teach them _anything_?

"They're mind controlled," the daughter finished.

"An army of mind controlled Fae?" Tamsin asked, sarcastically. Because _of course_ these _assholes_ were going to have an army of _freaking mind controlled Fae_. "No problem."

"I don't want to kill anyone," the daughter, again, with her freaking _woe-is-me attitude_ that Tamsin found so _freaking annoying_. Totally Bo's daughter. And what is this _bullshit_ about not wanting to _kill_ anyone? If you're living in a _freaking warzone_ can you really _not_ kill anyone?

"You won't," Lauren said. Yeah, she's definitely the doc's kid, too. So _human_ with all the emotions and shit.

"We should load up," the son. "Get ready."

A general nodding around the room. Cause _why not_. One by one Tamsin watched them get up and follow Bo and Lauren's kids out of the room and towards… what? Battle? Cause those two kids are _exactly_ who Tamsin would want to be behind in battle.

Then she realized that she was alone with Katie. _Crap_.

"I'm sorry, kid," Tamsin said. Was that the right thing to say in this situation? The "_I'm sorry I don't want you_ _and you had to hear me scream about it_" situation? Is there a handbook on this sort of shit?

"Whatever, it's fine," Katie told her.


	27. Chapter 27

Chapter Twenty-Seven

* * *

><p>Dmitri King: Heir to the Demon; Powerful Warrior; Future Ruler of all Fae-kind. Or at least those were the lies he told himself. In reality Dmitri was an Empath Fae who had been abandoned by his father as a child and grew up on the streets. He was weak. He'd nearly starved on more than one occasion and had been beaten and left for dead more times than he could count, which wasn't really that high, but still. But then he got <em>lucky<em>, or at least that's how it seemed.

He'd been attempting to pick pockets on the West End, deep into Dark Fae territory, when he'd fumbled and got caught with his hand in the wrong guy's pockets. Ordinarily he would've been able to run away from the "scene of the crime." Years of living on the streets and getting into tough situations had made him _fast_. Or, more accurately, fast enough. On a good night he could outrun most of his human targets. But this wasn't a _human_ whose pocket he'd been caught in. Oh, no. This was a Dark Fae _Lord_ who Dmitri had just tried to pickpocket. And there was no getting out of this one. It appeared Dmitri's luck had run out.

Or had it? In the alley between a Cigar Shoppe and Dark Bar Dmitri was strung up on a fence and pummeled repeatedly by two of the Lord's body guards. They'd cracked two of his ribs, broken his nose, and were damn near killing him when Ryker Stahl and AJ Dwyer showed up. The Lord, it appeared, was AJ's father and AJ begged him to leave Dmitri alive, as he was in desperate need of a new pet. On his father's instruction – which was really more of a snapping of his fingers – Dmitri was released from the spot he was hung on into the custody of AJ Dwyer. It was a rescuing that would change the course of Dmitri's life.

When the war started many of the more powerful Fae began to filter out of the city to avoid the inevitable death and destruction. It was the rare few that stayed behind, believing that they could take advantage of the chaos and create for themselves a position of wealth and higher power. Mr. Dwyer was one of these Fae. It was a year in when the lights finally went out and Dmitri heard that the person responsible for this darkness was none other than Mr. Dwyer himself. The Dark Fae Lord wanted to instill fear in the people that remained behind and make them desperate for his aide. Dmitri felt the world shifting beneath his feet and he was frightened. But not nearly as frightened as he was going to be because it soon became evident that Mr. Dwyer wasn't acting of his own freewill but was being _controlled_ by his son and Ryker Stahl, who, as it turned out, was capable of mind control. His "savior" contained within him a darker soul than Dmitri ever seen and he began to pray for his own death.

But death did not come. Every time he was close something brought him back.

In the second year of the war the bodyguards who had pummeled Dmitri found Mr. Dwyer dead in his office. Foul play from the Light Camp was suspected but Dmitri knew the truth: AJ Dwyer had killed his father in cold blood. He didn't need him anymore. Enough progress had been made that there was no turning back. The lights were out, controlled secretly by the Dwyer family. Most Fae families had left the city, with those that remained being held by the mercy of the Dark Fae army. Hardly anyone dared to fight against those that ruled the city. And if they did…? AJ and Ryker would put them in their place by giving them one last choice: do you value your life enough to walk away? Most did. They begrudgingly handed over the last of their possession and then either fled the city or joined the dark side.

And Dmitri? He was controlled to do their bidding as well.

Over the course of five years Dmitri had not only _killed_ other Fae – other _innocent_ Fae – but he'd _tortured_ several as well. He'd been made to burn houses to the ground with children trapped inside. He'd been made to slaughter Light Fae leaders. And the worst part was that his performing these actions made Ryker and AJ look innocent. Though they were certainly known as members of the Hawk Brothers they were never seen _murdering_ anyone. Only Dmitri was.

Then the miracle that he'd been praying for came in the form of Jay Thornwood.

Dmitri had been out on the streets by himself after sundown when Jay had jumped him from behind and began pounding at his face. Dmitri made no move to stop him, he just accepted the punches over and over and over again. But Jay was too kind a soul and eventually, upon realizing that Dmitri was not defending himself, pulled himself off and extended and hand to lift him off the ground.

"You should finish me off," Dmitri said, refusing the hand offered to him.

"I believe in a fair fight," Jay had responded. "And I only 'finish off' those that deserve it."

"I deserve it," Dmitri countered, standing himself up in front of Jay.

"No, you don't," Jay replied. In an instant he had grabbed Dmitri's arm and was pulling back his sleeve to reveal a spidery black mark on Dmitri's arm. "Just as I thought."

"What?" Dmitri asked, pulling his arm away.

"You're being controlled," Jay told him.

"No," Dmitri snapped. "I've done terrible things. I deserve to die."

There was a pause as Dmitri and Jay stared at each other, their eyes conveying what their lips didn't say. Dmitri was desperately pleading with Jay to end his life while Jay refused.

"What would you say if I offered you a chance to redeem yourself?" Jay asked.

"Redeem myself?" Dmitri asked confused. "How?"

"AJ Dwyer had my father killed," Jay told him. "Everything bad that's happened happened because of _that_."

"I don't understand," Dmitri responded. "How can I change something like that?"

"There's something called the mnemestone," Jay told him. "You need to find it. And use it to get to the past." Jay paused, seemingly searching his mind for what to say next, "Once you're there go to Trick McCorrigan and tell him what's happened."

Dmitri stared at Jay for a long moment, confused as to why this man trusted him with something that seemed so important.

"Do you understand?" Jay asked him.

"Y-yeah," Dmitri responded.

"Good," Jay said. "The fate of the world is in your hands."

* * *

><p>The mnemestone was hidden in a vault inside Dwyer Consolidated and proved easier to get access to than Dmitri imagined it would. Three days after Jay had spoken with him Dmitri had stolen it out of the vault and disappeared without notice. He hid it inside of an abandoned apartment building near the outskirts of neutral territory and spent night after night trying to activate it. In the end it seemed nearly hopeless. But then something came to mind…<p>

Though the mnemestone was hardly mentioned in Fae history books, lots of other ancient artifacts were and a great many of them required some sort of blood sacrifice in order to be activated. _Blood_ was probably the key to getting the mnemestone to work. But Dmitri's blood did nothing for it. He needed the blood of someone far more powerful: Jay's friend – or was she his lover? – Charlie.

It tore him up inside to set up the ambush but needed it to look as realistic as possible so that AJ and Ryker wouldn't question it. He called on twelve of the Dwyer army to attack Charlie and leave her for dead. Afterwards, when she'd passed out on the road home, Dmitri had collected her blood for the mnemestone and then placed her inside of the office building she'd emerged from in the hopes that someone would find her before she died.

Later that night Dmitri returned to the apartment he'd secreted the mnemestone away in and drained the entire supply of Charlie's blood onto it. He woke up the next morning with his head throbbing and eyes foggy to discover that he was no longer in a warzone. He was in 2016.

* * *

><p>Convincing Trick McCorrigan of the situation proved to be the most difficult aspect of the entire adventure. The owner of the Dal Riata thought Dmitri was crazy as he detailed a <em>second<em> Fae War to the man.

"That's impossible," Trick had told him.

"I assure you, sir, it's very much possible."

"Who sent you here?" he asked.

They were standing in Trick's basement apartment and Dmitri watched as Trick walked over to a stack of books and pulled one out of the middle. It had a series of names written in it next to dates.

"His name is Jay Thornwood," Dmitri told him.

Trick laughed.

"Thornwood?" he asked, still laughing. "Thornwood is the name a very good friend of mine uses to pass in the human world. Nice try."

"Sir, I swear, I'm not joking," Dmitri responded.

"Alright, fine," Trick told him. "Give me another name. If it's in the book, I'll give another listen to your tale."

Dmitri sighed and swallowed hard. It seemed that this was going to be his last chance to convince Trick McCorrigan that the future needed help. And doing so hedged on Dmitri knowing a _single_ name in the book that Trick was holding.

"Fredrick Dwyer," Dmitri coughed out.

"Who?" Trick asked. He sounded startled, as if the name meant something to him, and Dmitri found himself sighing in relief before Trick had even affirmed that the name was in the book.

"Fredrick Dwyer," Dmitri repeated.

"Fredrick Dwyer?" Trick asked. "You're trying to tell me _that_ good-for-nothing son-of-a-Fae is responsible for this "war" you keep trying to convince me of?"

"His son," Dmitri said. "Yes."

"Well, okay then," Trick responded, closing the book in his hands. "Tell me your tale again."


	28. Chapter 28

Chapter Twenty-Eight

* * *

><p>It was black and white gems fitted to a silver ring hanging freely on the edge of a silver chain. It was a symbol of her mother's defiance in selecting a side, which Charlie felt "the grey" had mirrored in their staunch refusal to align themselves in the Fae War. But the symbol was also one of <em>protection<em> and _eternal devotion_ that had been passed onto Charlie one night after she'd asked where "mommy" had gone. There had been pictures of Lauren all over the house for as long as Charlie could remember. And Bo had never hidden the fact that Lauren was Charlie and Ethan's _other_ mother. But she never talked about it either. She never talked about the fact that her children had another mother or the fact that Lauren wasn't there with them. At least not until Charlie, innocently, at age four, had come to Bo wanting to answers. At the time Charlie didn't understand the pain that her innocent question had caused her mother but now, looking back, it was clear that it had taken _everything _Bo had in her to not break down as she gave Charlie that ring. Charlie never got the story of where the ring had come from or exactly what it meant to her mothers. All Bo had told her was that Lauren would _want_ Charlie to have it and that _one day_, when Charlie was older and was ready, she should use that ring to _devote_ herself to the person she truly loved.

This was the thought currently on Charlie's mind: who did she truly love? Was it Katie? Was it Jay? Was it someone else? As everyone else tore through gear and prepared for battle with the Hawk Brothers Charlie was digging through the depths of her memories in search of an answer.

She thought of the lake and the moment she'd lost her innocence to Jay. She remembered how young and foolish they were and how he'd told her that he loved her when he clearly didn't. But she didn't love him, either. She remembered the ride home and the internal struggle that grew inside of her. She hadn't said the words to him and wondered if he'd noticed or even cared. She wondered if she should just tell Jay she loved him even though it wasn't true. She wondered if saying that she did would remove the awkwardness that sat between them. But then she decided against it and remembered their relationship dissolving to the point that they could barely stand to be the in the same room. She remembered years later when he'd found her and David. She remembered how much he had _changed_ and how new feelings had emerged inside of her at the sight of him being a _brother_ to David. Lastly, she remembered the tunnels and Jay coming to her moments before he died and how she felt like her heart was going to break right out of her chest as she watched his life fade away. Was this what love was supposed to feel like? Did this mean that she had missed her opportunity to devote herself to the person she truly loved? She wasn't sure.

With Katie everything was both easier and more complex. She remembered being drawn to Katie because the girl _needed_ her in a way that she'd never been needed before and it felt good to be needed. She remembered how they had quickly gone from a purely sexual relationship to one where _feelings_ were involved. She remembered the first time she felt like she might be _in love_ with Katie, but how that feeling had shattered when she'd discovered Katie having sex with someone else. She remembered the nights where Katie had _begged _and _pleaded_ for forgiveness and how she had finally decided to return to Katie sans feelings. But while Charlie had withdrawn her own feelings Katie's grew daily and eventually Charlie remembered it being clear that Katie was, most certainly, _in love_ with her. She remembered the multiple times, after that first realization, where the words had hung on the end of Katie's tongue. She remembered the times that Katie had whispered it to her when Charlie appeared to be sleeping because she was afraid of what saying the words when Charlie was awake might mean for their relationship. And she remembered every night over the past year when she would sit up in bed, Katie lying naked beside her, and wonder what it was that was preventing her from saying "I love you" to the girl. But Charlie could never seem to bring herself to do it because the thing that she most remembered about being with Katie was the feeling that she would get as she would leave the confines of Katie's bed to take up residency in the chair in the corner of David's room: solace.

"What's that?" Lauren whispered beside her.

"The most important decision of my life," Charlie responded.

She turned and looked into her mother's loving brown eyes. It was clear to Charlie that the ring she was holding in her hands meant nothing to her mother, certainly not at the moment in time that they had come from. But this understanding did little to calm Charlie's mind, which still dove through her own memories in search of the answer that she was looking for: who does she truly love? She'd told Katie just hours before that she loved her and a part of Charlie certainly _meant_ what she said, but a part of Charlie was also _so confused_ by everything that was happening around her and she wondered if this confusion had somehow clouded her mind. Was the presence of her family who had all died so long ago overwhelming her emotions and making her think unclearly? She wasn't sure. But the question kept echoing in her mind and she kept diving in search of an answer.

"Charlotte," her mother whispered beside her, snapping her back out of her thoughts. "No decision should be this hard to make."

Her mother's words echoed what Katie had said to her previously: it shouldn't be this hard. And they were both right. The answer – _any_ answer – should come as easily and naturally to Charlie as breathing did. _Love_ shouldn't be this complicated.

"You're right," Charlie said.

Before she even quite had time to realize what she was doing Charlie was standing in front of David, putting the necklace over his head. It was the first thing that Charlie had ever remembered making sense in her entire life. The symbol, after all, was one of _eternal love_ and _devotion_, a pure feeling that she'd always felt, in some way, for David. From the moment her aunt had asked her to _raise_ him, Charlie had dedicated her entire life to making sure that David knew just how _important_ he was to her life and the lives of those around him. She'd do anything for him, including commit murder, something that she was unwilling to do for anyone else. And on some level David understood this even if he didn't really _get_ it.

"I love you, okay?" Charlie said to him. "And I _promise_ you that everything is going to be okay."

There was a look of confusion in David's eyes but eventually the understanding of what Charlie was trying to say to him settled in and he began to nod.

* * *

><p>Located on the large paper map that her brother had just placed on the floor were several blue markers where the Resistance had placed cameras and other radar machinery for Intel gathering. Though there was no discernable pattern to where a camera went or where a heat sensor went or where a laser was located every piece had been placed with an amount of precision that was usually only employed by surgeons and army snipers. So while Dyson and everyone else saw a random pattern of cobalt freckles on a worn out paper map Charlie saw the finest of artwork on full display before her. It was odd to think but the placement of that machinery was, by far, her greatest achievement in life. She'd spent hours working out complicated mathematical formulas in her head, devising angles and working out the best placement for the most coverage, and, in the end, what she had was 100 perfectly placed machines that acted as her key to the city. They told her everything that she needed to know, including where Ryker Stahl and AJ Dwyer were at that very moment.<p>

"That apartment won't be hard to break into," Dyson was saying.

But the device that Charlie was holding in her hands was telling her something else. Not that the apartment was going to be difficult to break into but that Ryker and AJ weren't there and so breaking in wasn't going to be necessary. No, the second she'd scanned the image of the map with all of its tiny cobalt circles on it the device in her hand had lit up with archived camera footage and readings from the heat sensors that told her that Ryker and AJ had left the apartment the same day that David had been attacked and they hadn't been back since.

"They aren't there," Charlie said, her eyes still on the screen she was holding.

"Where are they?" her brother asked her.

Charlie continued to follow Ryker and AJ's path across the city as they went left and right and then left again. Though she didn't look up from the screen in her hands she felt every set of eyes in the room staring at her, particularly Katie's. Since Charlie had placed the ring around David's neck Katie hadn't taken her eyes off of her. But Charlie wasn't surprised. Katie had seen the ring before in Charlie's things and had asked her what it was and what it meant. At the time their relationship was purely physical, though veering towards emotional, so Charlie had told Katie about the night her mother had given it to her and what Bo had told her about it. Deep down Charlie believed that, even though Katie was insecure in their relationship and didn't believe that Charlie actually cared for her, she had been waiting for that ring for a while now. Katie wanted the _whole nine yards_ with Charlie: marriage and children. And it didn't seem to matter to Katie, or perhaps it had just never crossed the girl's mind, that either of them could die at any moment and leave the other behind.

"Consolidated," Charlie responded without looking up.

Dwyer Consolidated was a twenty-eight-story tower located in the West End of the city, deep in Dark Fae territory. Before the war it had belonged to transportation mogul Fredrick Dwyer, who kept the floors loaded up with accountants and lawyers and engineers who worked to protect his interests: airplanes. By the time Charlie had moved into the Firehouse with David the Consolidated offices had been largely abandoned, but that hadn't stopped Charlie from getting herself a copy of the floor plan and _memorizing it_ in the same way she'd memorized the tunnels.

"So that's where we go?" Dyson asked.

"Looks like it," Charlie replied as she slid the device into a bag hanging at her side.

"Who goes and who stays?" Bo asked.

"We all go," Charlie responded. "Everyone but David."

"He can't be left alone," Kenzi quickly countered. It was clear by the look in her aunt's eyes that in the brief amount of time that Kenzi had known David was her son she'd gotten quite attached to him. This, of course, didn't surprise Charlie one bit as David was wonderful and the _easiest_ of human's to get along with, even at such a young age.

"He'll be fine," Charlie assured her. "They won't be coming back here for him."

"How do you know?" Kenzi asked, still obviously freaked out.

"Because they got what they wanted already," Charlie responded.

It took a moment for Kenzi to realize what Charlie was saying: that the attack by AJ in the woods hadn't been meant to draw everyone out to fight but that it had been meant to collect David's blood. Her jaw dropped slightly and she looked around at everyone else to see if they knew that had been the purpose or if they were just as surprised as Kenzi was. Of course, they were just as surprised. But there wasn't really time for questions and Charlie didn't seem like she wanted to give them an explanation.

"Let's go," Ethan finally said.

* * *

><p>As everyone else followed after Ethan Charlie turned to David and pulled him into a tight hug. It was the awkward hug that you give a little kid but David was twelve and wasn't really "little" anymore. Sniffling, Charlie pulled herself back and then extended her hand towards him. Perhaps a handshake was more appropriate. But, no, David was happy with the hug and pulled Charlie back towards him as if he knew, as if he understood, that the second she walked out the back door there was a chance he would never see her again.<p>

Charlie and Ethan walked at the back of the pack. Ahead of them Katie was walking next to her father. In the moonlight it amazed Charlie how much Katie actually looked like Dyson: her hair was curling at the ends like his and her complexion was oddly similar. Off to the side Tamsin kept looking over at Dyson and Katie in the awkward way of someone that wants to bond but doesn't know how. Then there was their moms and aunt Kenzi walking together nearby looking both incredibly strong and totally terrified. Charlie wanted to run up and give them all one final hug because, no matter what, after tonight her family was either going home or everyone was going to be dead.

"Hey," Ethan whispered beside her.

"Yeah?" Charlie asked.

"Remember that promise we made each other, years ago?" he asked her, still keeping his voice low.

"Of course," Charlie responded with a nod. "'Til the end."


	29. Chapter 29

Chapter Twenty-Nine

* * *

><p>They'd done plenty of "jobs" like this before. Well, more accurately, Ethan, Jay, Charlie, and Katie had. They'd done so many and had become so good at it, in fact, that doing a "job" like this was almost second nature. They all knew what to do: get in, fix the situation, and get out. And they each had their roles, their parts that they performed to get the "job" done. Charlie was their little "hacktivist," all she needed was a mainframe and she could take control of an entire system. It was a task she shouldn't have been able to perform, really, given that the power was out for almost the entire city. But that was the thing about Charlie: given such a challenge she was always capable of finding a solution. Say, an untapped line that someone had forgotten to turn off? Jay was the enforcer or, in some cases, Charlie's bodyguard. There was not a single situation that Jay couldn't manage punch himself out of. And, in most cases, he managed to do so while making sure that Charlie went uninterrupted. Katie was their little balletic thief. Though slightly larger than Charlie, Katie was still quite demure and was capable of slipping into places no one would expect without even being seen and then getting out before anyone realized she had even been there. And Ethan? Well…<p>

"How do we get in?" Tamsin asked.

They were about half a mile away from Dwyer Consolidated now and Ethan could tell that everyone else was getting nervous, Katie and Charlie included. But that was okay. That was normal. Everyone can get a little nervous. What matters is what you do once the action has actually started. Do you remain nervous? Or do you straighten yourself out and get to it?

"We're going to walk right in through the front doors," Ethan responded.

It was a plan that probably seemed foolish to everyone else, which was verified in the many eye shifts in his direction. But it wasn't a foolish plan. Not really. The Hawk Brothers were, most probably, _waiting_ for them already so why make a big show out of it? Why go through all the pomp-and-circumstance? They didn't need to sneak in through the back or find a way in via the roof. Doing so was unnecessary. One of the many glass-pane front doors of Dwyer Consolidated would work just perfectly.

"You want us to just waltz right in through the front doors?" Tamsin asked him, with a tone that heavily implied that she thought he was either incredibly stupid or, perhaps, she'd just misheard him. Though Ethan was sure it was the former, and not the latter.

"Exactly," he responded.

"That doesn't sound wise," Kenzi said.

"It'll work just fine," he said, trying his best to reassure his aunt with his tone. But Kenzi seemed unconvinced, as did Dyson and Tamsin and his mothers.

"It's the best plan," Charlie jumped in. "There's too many of us to try and sneak in."

Charlie's words seemed to calm everyone, or at least made enough sense that they agreed that Ethan's plan was the best way. Okay, they'd go in through the front. But then what?

From there they'd split into two groups and sweep to the top. One group would need to get Charlie to the 13th floor, where the computer mainframe was. With any luck there would still be enough power in the building that she could use her tech gear and take control of the building. If she couldn't… well… they were going to need a lot more luck. Katie, Dyson, and Tamsin would be the ones to go with Charlie. They'd need to cover her for a while, buy her enough time to work her magic.

"Whoa whoa whoa," Tamsin interrupted.

Ethan let out a frustrated sigh.

"Yeah?" he asked.

"Four Fae in one group and only two in the other?" she asked him, again, with the tone that implied that she thought he was incredibly stupid.

"Yeah," he responded.

"That sounds like suicide," she returned.

"It's not," Ethan responded.

"How is that _not_ suicide?" Tamsin shouted.

"Because I'm the strongest one here," Ethan snapped back and almost instantly regretted it. Not what he said, which was the truth, but that he'd just snapped at his aunt. He hated raising his voice and having done so made him feel really uncomfortable. It made him so uncomfortable that almost as soon as the words had escaped from his mouth he took a step back from where he was standing and immediately shifted his eyes towards the ground.

"Wait, what?" Tamsin asked, clearly not angry, more… shocked by what Ethan had just said.

"He's the strongest one here," Charlie answered for her brother. "And he's also your best chance at getting home, so you should probably listen to his plan."

* * *

><p>While Charlie was, undoubtedly, the genius of the family, Ethan was the mastermind. As Charlie would break down the numbers and technology for him, a plan would always be forming in Ethan's mind. But not just <em>any<em> plan. Ethan formed what he called: the best possible outcome. The _best possible outcome_ was the plan with the fewest variables, where as much as possible could be accounted for, and the fewest causalities would occur. He preferred to know as much as possible before entering an area. _Any_ area. And this…? This was not the _best possible outcome_. Not by any means. There were already _too many_ variables. There was too much of a reliance on _luck_. Oh, and they were down a team member, too. Ethan usually relied on Jay to cover Charlie's back. To cover _everyone's_ back, really, because Jay had tremendously superior hearing and would be able to tell them if someone unexpected was heading their way. Granted, Ethan knew Dyson had superior hearing, too, but it wasn't the same… Ethan had known Jay and been fighting alongside Jay for _so long_. He trusted Jay to get the job done. He trusted Jay to do the right thing. And while, on some level, Ethan was sure that he could trust his uncle… it simply wasn't the same.

So here it was. The plan with _too many variables_ that Ethan hoped would end with the mnemestone in hand and quick escape. They'd split into two groups. Ethan was going to have to trust his uncle. And if his uncle _couldn't_ be trusted to have Charlie's back, at least Katie would be there. And Katie, God love her, would take a bullet for Charlie, though Ethan honestly hoped she would never have to. And then for added protection there was his aunt, Tamsin, who, rumor had it, in her heyday had been able to take out entire fields of men by casting doubt upon them. He'd never gotten to see it but Ethan hoped that it was true because if Ryker and AJ had as many men as Charlie thought they did… well…

With his mothers and aunt Kenzi by his side Ethan was going to sweep the floors, one by one, until he reached the top because Ethan assumed, quite unfortunately, that Ryker and AJ were a fan of every terrible thriller movie out there and would think it _funny_ to be waiting on the top floor. As they moved up floor-by-floor they were going to have to dispatch as many of Ryker and AJ's mind controlled men as they could. Though he knew that Charlie was against killing any of them, because she viewed them as _innocent victims_, Ethan was not beyond killing anyone that stood between him and the safe escape of his family. He reasoned that while he didn't relish the opportunity to take another's life, they were doing this so that their parents could get back to their own timeline and _fix_ everything. And, if they were successful, it wouldn't matter how many people Ethan had killed because the slate would be wiped clean.

This is what Ethan was thinking as they all stood across the street from Dwyer Consolidated. _The slate would be wiped clean_. Without those words he knew that wouldn't be able to do the things that he needed to do to protect his family. He wasn't going to be able to make the difficult decisions because everything else would be so overwhelming that he'd be, pretty much, useless…

"Okay, everyone know the plan?" he asked.

After a beat there was a general nodding from everyone else. They all looked uncertain but Charlie's declaration that Ethan was their _only chance _had resolved them to trust him, at least a little… at least enough.

"Okay," he said and he started walking across the street towards the tall glass-pane doors of Dwyer Consolidated and the beginning of the end.

* * *

><p>In the lobby after they'd entered Ethan stood still. Everyone was already split into their groups, waiting to get started on Ethan's plan. But he couldn't move. Not just yet. He looked over towards Katie and then to his sister.<p>

"I'll see you up top?" he asked her.

There was a pause and time seemed to slow as Charlie considered her brother's question, which was really so much more than the simple words that Ethan had said. It wasn't "see you up top?" so much as it was: "Are you okay?"; "Do you need anything?"; and "Do you know that I love you?" She nodded. Yes, she was okay. No, she didn't need anything. And, yes, she knew that he loved her.

"Katie," Ethan said, turning his eyes from Charlie over to the girl.

"Yeah?" she asked him, her voice letting it slip that she was nervous.

"Keep my sister safe," Ethan said.

Again, Ethan's words were so much more than what he said. It wasn't so much "keep my sister safe" as it was: "I trust you;" "I have faith in you;" "Don't worry;" and "I know you'll be okay." Katie nodded, swallowing her nerves as she did. Then Ethan watched as Katie grabbed Charlie by the elbow and pulled her along beside her, Dyson and Tamsin following quickly behind.

"Ethan," he heard his mother saying as his sister disappeared from sight.

"Yeah?" he said, turning back to look at his mothers and aunt, who were looking to him desperately for some sort of answers… some sort of direction. It was weird, now that he finally thought about it, because his mother, _Bo_, had always been the one that was leading _him_ and, really, taught him how to be the man that he was. And now? Here she was… looking to him for the same answers that he always used to turn to her for.

"We should go," Bo said.

"Yeah," he agreed. But then a thought occurred to him, something he'd forgotten to say before that really needed to be said. "You need to stay at least three feet away from me at all times."

"What!?" the three women standing by him all asked, clearly confused.

"Just trust me," Ethan responded. "You'll see."

* * *

><p>The first, second, third, and fourth floors were all completely clear. Ethan wasn't sure for how long they had been vacated but the only questionable activity that they found on any of them was an awful gathering of "<em>demon dust bunnies<em>" that had sent his aunt into a sneezing fit. They took the stairs to the fifth floor and for a while it seemed that it was going to be just as vacant as the four previous floors, which meant, Ethan hoped, that Charlie and them were having an easy time getting to the thirteenth floor. But then Ethan heard two sets of footsteps coming around a corner and he knew that they had just found the _start_ of the trouble.

It happened in a flash: Ethan raised a hand to his aunt and mothers, a signal for them to stop where they were; they froze and looked on confused; he held his other hand, his right hand, off to the side, and the air around it seemed to suddenly _zip_ or _suck _inward towards his open palm. Bo, Lauren, and Kenzi all watched in amazement as Ethan's hand started to glow the glorious blue color that Bo's eyes typically turned when she was sucking someone's chi and then Ethan turned his hand into a tight fist and he threw it directly into the nose of a foot solider, who _literally_ flew backwards as if he had been _yanked_ like a puppet on a string, into his companion.

"What the Fae!?" Kenzi asked, her eyes wide. Ethan was sure that his aunt thought she were hallucinating, but, perhaps not. By 2016 she had seen so much "Fae shit" that nothing probably surprised her.

Ethan turned to look at Bo whose mouth was hanging slightly open. He noticed that both of her hands had moved to her abdomen in a protective manner, a reflex, her was sure, because otherwise it was pretty funny.

"You're a Kinejun," he heard his other mother saying.

"A what now!?" Kenzi asked, her eyes still wide.

"A Kinejun," Lauren repeated. "It's an extremely rare breed of Fae. Think, _kinetic_. They use the energy around them to charge themselves and then..."

"Is that what that was?" Kenzi interrupted.

Ethan nodded.

"I thought Kinejun's were extinct," Lauren said, continuing her previous thought.

It wasn't what Ethan was expecting. He was _expecting_ his mother to ask how _exactly_ he was a Kinejun considering _no one else_ in his bloodline was. And considering Lauren's knowledge of Fae history and Fae genetics Ethan was quite surprised that this _wasn't_ her question. But, also, she knew enough to know what Kinejun's were _actually _capable of. How their powers _really _worked. So she obviously knew that what Ethan had just done wasn't _quite_ it. But he didn't want to push it. They didn't have time. So he just shrugged.

"Is that why you told us to stay three feet away from you?" Kenzi asked.

"Yeah," Ethan responded. "I don't want to accidentally…"

Ethan shrugged again. It wasn't a thought that he wanted his aunt or mothers to have: that if he weren't careful and they got too close he could accidentally _suck_ their life energy right out of them and kill them in a flash. What they were doing was already stressful enough; they really didn't need that to be on their mind but, he guessed, it was already too late for that…

* * *

><p>They continued to ascend, clearing the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth floors with little difficulty. Whenever a few of Ryker and AJ's men would show themselves Ethan would dispatch them quickly, never giving his aunt or mothers a reason to have to life their hands in defense.<p>

"This is why you placed us with you," Kenzi said, after Ethan finished clearing the tenth floor. "You're so powerful we don't even have to _do_ anything."

Ethan just embarrassedly shrugged. Though his mother had constantly told him when he was growing up that he was _powerful_ and _special_ Ethan never really liked to think of himself in that way. He was just _Ethan_. Yeah, as it turned out, he was an _extremely rare_ and _powerful_ breed of Fae but that didn't really _matter_ much to him because he was also a _cousin_ and a _brother_ and a _son_ and those things added up to _far more_ than being a Kinejun ever could.

"Bo-bo," Kenzi excitedly squealed, grabbing Bo's arm. "Your son is _awesome_."

"He really is," Bo said, smiling at Ethan in that loving way he remembered her always doing when he was a child.

* * *

><p>The thirteenth floor is where Ethan realized that they had a problem. Ethan stepped out of the stairwell expecting to lay eyes on Charlie or Dyson or Tamsin or Katie but saw no one instead. In shock he turned to look back at his aunt and mothers before he rushed forward and rapidly began searching every inch of open hallway and every open room, falsely hoping that his eyes were playing tricks on him and that his sister would be <em>somewhere<em> on the floor. But the room where the computer mainframe was supposed to be was _empty_. No computers, no wires, no _nothing_. It seemed that Ethan's worst fear had come to life. His plan, that his sister had _backed_, had done nothing but separate them and allow Ryker and AJ to capture his sister and Dyson and Tamsin and Katie.

"_FUCK!"_ Ethan screamed out. "_God damn it!"_

As he continued screaming his mothers came up behind him and looked into the empty computer room with hope in their eyes. Hope that instantly shattered upon realization that Ethan wasn't screaming for any reason: their daughter wasn't there.

"Oh," he heard Bo sob and then fall into Lauren's arms.

Ethan moved down the hall, leaving his aunt and mothers standing at the room where Charlie was supposed to be, and began kicking at the few closed doors that were left on the floor as if, somehow, that was going to help. He _knew_ that Charlie wasn't there but maybe if he tried _one more_ door… No.

"_FUCK FUCK FUCK!" _he screamed again.

Then, as if things weren't bad enough, Ethan looked back down the hallway where he'd left his aunt and mothers and saw the army of men closing in on them. He froze and his heart sank in his chest as he realized that he was too far away to do anything. He couldn't even scream to warn them because the men – a dozen, at least – were already too close. He'd done it again: left the people that he was supposed to be protecting _unprotected_.

"That's a shame," came an accented voice from behind him.

Ethan went to turn himself around towards the voice but before he could completely turn around he felt something hit him in the neck. The last conscious thought that Ethan had was the feeling of an electric _jolt_ running through him before everything went instantly black.

* * *

><p>It was like waking from a dream, except there wasn't any dream to wake up from there was only blackness to tunnel out of. Ethan opened his eyes to a world hazy and out of focus, with pulsing dark edges that wrapped around his vision. He heard the echo of a voice that seemed to be coming from directly in front of him but couldn't sort out who it was or what it was saying. And then he smelt something so <em>god-awful<em> that it repulsed him and he quickly drew himself back away from it and snapped his eyes open.

"Well, look at that," Ryker Stahl was saying. "Welcome back to the land of the living."

For a moment the world seemed awash in bright light. Everything seemed oddly white and Ethan began blinking rapidly to drawn his vision back to normal. He tried to lean himself forward but couldn't. This is when he realized that he was tied to a metal chair, his hands strapped tightly behind him, but by what he didn't know.

"Ethan," he heard a foggy voice from his left.

He blinked and rolled his head towards the voice: it was Katie and she was tied to a large metal pole drawing out of the floor to the ceiling. On either side of her stood one of her parents tied to their own pole. Tamsin was slumped forward, unconscious. Blood was running down the side of Dyson's face.

Ethan took a deep breath and felt a sharp pain in his neck where he'd been hit previously. He tried to move forward, out of the chair, but to no avail. Whatever he was tied down with he wasn't going to be able to break out of it as easily as he hoped. He sighed and turned his head to his right: his aunt and mothers were tied up in the same way that Katie, Dyson, and Tamsin were. They seemed to be unharmed but then Ethan noticed that Lauren's eyes were glued forward, at whatever was in front of Ethan that he had been unable to make out, and tears were streaming down her cheeks.

"Charlie," he whispered, turning his head.

Across the room, standing in front of six large windows that overlooked the city, AJ Dwyer was holding Charlie by the throat, with the evilest of grins on his face. Again, Ethan tried to move forward, but he couldn't.

"Brother!" AJ shouted in an oddly jubilant tone. "So glad that you could join us!"

"Charlie," Ethan repeated, louder this time, his eyes glued to his sister.

Physically she appeared fine, but it was obvious, to him at least, that she was terrified. There was the slightest of tremors traveling through her body and her eyes kept shifting around the room from their moms to Katie and then, finally, to Ethan.

"Shall we begin?" AJ asked.

"What do you want?" Ethan asked.

"Oh, you know, the usual, _wealth_, _power_," AJ responded with the most cliché super villain laugh Ethan thought he'd ever heard.

Behind him Ethan felt Ryker Stahl begin pacing. He went from left to right to left to right. Then he stopped and before Ethan even realized what was happening something hard had connected with his jaw and knocked him and the chair he was sitting in straight over.

"Now," AJ shouted. "Let me ask you a question."

There was a slight buzzing in Ethan's ears and he felt a small rivulet of blood begin dripping down his chin as Ryker set him back up again. He tried to breathe but found that he couldn't. Not really. Each attempt at air was painful and hardly any oxygen seemed to be reaching his lungs.

"Come on now!" AJ shouted. "Ryker doesn't hit that hard!"

Ethan bit his bottom lip and tried for another deep breath. He turned his head back towards the right. No one was attempting to get out of their chains and he wondered why. Then he realized: the mind controlled foot soldiers lining the back wall. If anyone managed to break free they'd probably be dead before they even managed to take a step.

"How much does your sister mean to you?" AJ was asking him.

Ethan turned his head back. He looked from AJ with his evil smile to Charlie with her deep brown eyes. Though Ethan knew, deep down, that his sister was terrified there was also something else in Charlie's eyes: _acceptance_. She was trying to tell Ethan that it was _okay_ for him to do whatever he needed to do. Just like he promised her he would years ago.

Another hit to the head. Ethan's mouth instantly filled with blood, which he immediately started to cough out. The cool tile of the floor felt nice against his cheek and he closed his eyes and began to count. One. Two. Three. Then Ryker Stahl leaned down to pull him off the floor and Ethan used _every_ bit of energy he had to move his hands and grab hold of the useless _son of a bitch_.

Ethan had never been quite sure _how_ or _why_ his powers worked the way they did. The best he could figure it was something in the odd mixture of his bloodline: his Blood Sage great-grandfather and all-powerful Succubus mother and whoever else might've been tossed in there. When he grabbed hold of Ryker Stahl it was only a matter of _seconds_, really, before every ounce of energy inside of him was completely drained. Sucked directly into Ethan, who was using the energy to heal himself and break out of whatever bonds had been used to tie him down. It was when he felt Ryker's life disappear in his hands that Ethan finally let go. And, as Ryker's lifeless body sailed through the air and traveled to the ground, Ethan heard the symphonic accompaniment of several mind controlled foot soldiers dropping as well.

"Don't make any sudden moves," AJ shouted. "I'll kill her. I swear I will."

"The mnemestone?" Ethan asked, ignoring AJ's threat.

AJ took a step back, redoubling his hold on Charlie as he dragged her along with him closer to the windows. To his left and right Ethan heard his family struggling to free themselves from their bonds.

"It's on him," Charlie shouted. "AJ has it."

"Ah, there is the problem," AJ was taunting in a singsong voice. "To get to the stone you have to come _closer_ and if you come any closer…"

AJ dragged a solitary finger across Charlie's throat, a gesture meant to inform Ethan that he would kill her.

Ethan looked to Charlie. He understood that his sister _was_, in fact, strong enough to remove herself from AJ's hold and end this quickly. But doing so would mean killing him and that was something that she didn't want to do. That was something that Ethan didn't want her to do because if their parents went back in time and _couldn't_ change this… she'd have to live with being a murderer.

"It's okay," Ethan said.

A confused look fell across AJ's face. He didn't understand what Ethan meant. Was he giving AJ permission to kill his sister? Impossible. No, Ethan's words were a message for Charlie. A message letting her know: _I love you_ and _I'll see you soon_.

In an instant a powerful pulse of electric blue light that flew out of Ethan's hands and sped towards AJ and Charlie. No one in the room had time to react. But Ethan didn't want them to. He didn't want anyone to realize what was happening until it was all over and they were left staring at broken glass and a vacant spot on the floor where his sister had previously been.


	30. Chapter 30

Chapter Thirty

* * *

><p>So here it was, the thing that no parent <em>ever<em> wanted to have to live through. Splayed out on the concrete amidst an ocean of shattered glass laid the body of Bo and Lauren's daughter, Charlie. She was bleeding and broken. Obviously no longer herself. Completely lifeless. Dead.

Then, as if it couldn't get any worse, Ethan walked directly towards the place that Charlie was lying and lifted her body up into his arms. The sight of it broke something inside of Bo. She began crying. She struggled to breathe. And then she became immediately sick on the pavement beside her.

Lauren was to her side in an instant and though the doctor was crying, too, Bo felt the blonde's arms wrap tightly around her. But not in comfort, no. It was a sympathetic understanding because Lauren, too, was completely broken by the sight of their daughter hanging limp in their son's arms.

"Katie," Ethan was saying.

Bo couldn't breathe. Bo couldn't move. She continued to cry into Lauren's arms.

"Katie," Ethan said again. "Find the stone."

Somehow, though Bo knew that they needed the mnemestone to get home, it had been the _very_ last thing on her mind. Charlie was dead. Her daughter was dead. And Ethan was holding her in his arms. How was he even able to _think_ about anything else?

"Katie," he said again. "Come on."

Bo felt Lauren place one of her hands gently on her back. Then there was a gentle kiss to her temple. Tears from Lauren's eyes fell onto Bo's cheeks. Tears from Bo's eyes fell onto Lauren's shirt.

"Katie," Ethan said again.

"Got it," Bo heard the shaky reply.

"Oh, Lauren," Bo sobbed.

She heard footsteps around them but couldn't manage to remove herself from Lauren's arms. She didn't want to see what was happening around them. She didn't want to lay eyes on Ethan. She didn't want to catch another glimpse of her daughter's lifeless body. But it was an image that she couldn't get out of her head. It kept flashing before her eyes.

What had happened?

She couldn't make sense of it.

One second Charlie had been standing there, AJ holding tightly onto her throat. The next second there was a large flash of blue light and Charlie was gone. The glass windows were shattered. And Ethan had collapsed onto the floor and began sobbing. Ethan had… Oh, god…

"Lauren," Bo sobbed.

"I know," she heard.

"Let's go," Ethan was saying.

There was something oddly robotic in Ethan's words. Like he had turned off his emotions. Like he wasn't allowing himself to actually _feel_ anything. But he had just killed his sister and was now holding her body in his arms. Bo couldn't imagine that he felt _nothing_.

"Give them a second," Dyson said.

It took a minute but eventually Lauren managed to get Bo up onto her feet. The succubus felt instantly light headed, like she was going to pass out, but Lauren kept her up. Bo buried her face into her wife's shoulder, afraid that if she lifted her eyes for even a moment she would collapse to the ground and never get back up again.

"We really have to go," Ethan was saying.

"Relax," Dyson responded.

"How are you so okay?" Tamsin's voice came.

Bo didn't even have to look up from Lauren's shoulder. She knew that the question was directed at her son.

"Because if I stop for even a _moment_ to think about what just happened… if I even _consider_ that maybe you guys _can't_ change this… I won't be able to live with myself," Ethan responded.

Bo heard footsteps walking away. She slowly lifted her head up off of Lauren's shoulder. Ethan was about ten feet away from her now. Bo watched his back for a moment as he continued walking, Charlie in his arms. No one moved. Bo felt completely helpless and turned to look at Dyson and Tamsin. Was this how they felt once they'd realized that Jay was their son and that he was dead, too?

Lauren kissed her forehead again. Bo leaned back into her shoulder. Every breath, every thought broke her heart more and more. She wanted to scream.

Ethan was now twenty feet away and Bo noticed that Katie was now beside him. She looked to Lauren. Her wife nodded. They began to follow.

Who would have thought when all of this began that they would be standing where they were now? Between them they had started with five children. Now only three remained. Dyson and Tamsin's son had sacrificed himself. Bo and Lauren's son had killed their daughter. Everything was broken. Everything felt so _unreal_.

And what were they to do now?

Activate the mnemestone somehow? Hope that it took them back to 2016? Hope that they could _change_ this hell?

Bo couldn't wrap her mind around it.

The apartment. The place where it all started. Ethan had stopped in front of it. But how had he known where it was? Charlie had been the one to find them there. Charlie who was good with computers. Charlie who had the most angelic and beautiful laugh Bo had ever heard. Charlie, her daughter.

"I need you to fix this," Ethan was saying to no one in particular. "I need you to make it better."

"How?" Bo found herself saying before she broke down again and began crying into Lauren's arms.

"I don't know," Ethan said.

For the first time Bo heard the emotion underlying her son's voice. He sounded so very _lost_. He sounds so broken by _everything_, Bo imagined.

"Katie, let's go," Ethan was saying.

Bo looked up to see Katie handing the bag with the mnemestone in it to her father. She smiled at him. Then turned and hurried to catch up to Ethan. Bo looked at her son's back as he walked away. She looked to Lauren. She wanted to scream out. She wanted to say _goodbye_. But it was too late. Ethan was too far away. Her son was gone.

In the apartment they stood in a circle staring at each other. Lauren's arms were still wrapped tightly around Bo as the two continued crying. No one was sure what to say. No one was sure what to do. Eventually, though, Dyson walked over to Bo and extended the bag that contained the mnemestone.

"I'm sorry," he told her.

Bo looked into Dyson's eyes. She wanted to thank him for his apology but she couldn't get the words out. She wanted to tell _him_ sorry because he'd lost a child, too. But it was okay. He understood. He always did.

Bo took the bag out of Dyson's hands. He walked back to his position in the circle. Bo's eyes, cloudy from tears, swept to everyone's face. Tamsin. Dyson. Kenzi. Lauren. They'd been through so much. Not just since they'd arrived in 2041. Since they'd known each other. It seemed impossible how much they had done and seen together. But, somehow, they always made it through. And they could make it through this, too. Right?

With a deep breath Bo reached her hand into the bag. She remembered what had happened last time. The lights and the haze. The disorientation. She expected all of that to return. She closed her eyes.

There was a prick of her finger. Bo took a deep breath. Beside her she felt Lauren squeezing her elbow. A moment passed and then another as nothing seemed to be happening. Bo opened her eyes: the world rushed around her in a wild display of blue and green and violet. When it stopped nothing seemed to have changed, but Bo knew that it had. The mnemstone was gone, yet again, along with the bag that had been holding it. She turned to look at everyone else, one after the other, each with a blank look in their eyes. She took a deep breath. Though she wasn't sure if they could change anything that they had seen a part of her wanted to believe that they could. A part of her wanted to believe that this was a brand new day and that anything was possible.

* * *

><p><strong>THE END<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

Firstly, I just want to acknowledge and thank everyone who has read BotE. I recognize that the story was written in a style unconventional for fan fiction and that it was probably really difficult to get into, especially the first seven chapters, which I admit were a bit muddy and poorly put together. In spite of this, several of you have stuck with me and read BotE from start to finish. Thank you.

Now I'd like to take a moment to reflect on the process of bringing this story to life and on some of the more subtle nuances of my writing, which some of you may be curious to hear. For starters, there are several indirect references made throughout BotE – turns of phrase often repeated, inconsequential mentions that later resurface and prove to be quite significant, etc. – that I placed for those with an attention to detail to discover. And while I am certainly not going to go over all of them here, because that would ruin the fun, I thought I might mention two of them to you:

1. In the very first chapter Charlie briefly details an ambush that she "_wasn't _expecting," where she lost "so much blood it was a wonder she had any left." Blood is a recurring motif in BotE. The mnemestone _requires_ it to work and David later loses so much that everyone is _certain_ he will die. In chapter twenty-five it is revealed that Charlie's blood, taken by King after she was ambushed and left for dead, is what activated the mnemestone and allowed King to travel to 2016, and that AJ Dwyer had attacked David and was planning to use his blood in order to activate the mnemestone again and strand the gang in 2041.

2. In _Lost Girl_, alignment is something that gets talked about a lot and is viewed as important. Are you Light Fae? Or are you Dark Fae? I start off with the Fae War and immediately point towards this split and how important it is within my story, but mention Ethan, Jay, Charlie, and Katie as being somewhat _in-between_ it: the Resistance, the grey, etc. Given that information it may surprise you to know that there are several subtle mentions of what _Jay_'s alignment is. He plays chess with the _white_ pieces, the tiles in his shower are _ivory_, Charlie calls him "White Knight," etc. Jay is Light Fae.

I've mentioned before that BotE was plotted from the beginning to the end before a single chapter was ever put up. This allows for me to insert several of the details I mentioned above and prevents me from forcing a sudden overhaul that could result in writer's block or a long-term hiatus. This also means that I do not incorporate reviews/audience feedback into the story. But don't get me wrong, this doesn't mean that I do not care about the feedback I receive or about your opinions. Here I point you towards the one _major change_ that I felt compelled to make, which some of you commented as wanting to see. This, of course, was the inclusion of the complicated, but beautiful, Charlie and Katie relationship. But what did this change, exactly? One major change is that Katie was originally meant to be with Ethan, who is actually far less robotic than Katie imagines him to be.

When I collectively referred to Ethan, Jay, Charlie, and Katie as 'the Grey' it wasn't simply a comment on their position in the war as neither with the Dark Fae Army or the Light Fae Army, but a subtle comment on them as individual characters. They are _grey_ as in complicated; I can make arguments both in favor of and against each of them. This makes it more interesting and exciting for me, especially when I consider the reviews I received, which feature opinions that are as varied and polarizing as my own feelings are for Ethan, Jay, Charlie, and Katie.

Some final notes:

1. I freely admit to occasionally screwing up with the "kids" ages. Sincerest apologies.

2. I take full responsibility for the occasional spelling and grammar mistakes. When I get "on a roll" with my writing I just type and don't tend to look back for fine editing.

3. Occasionally, there were things written that I admit must seem very contradictory. There were two reasons for this. 1) I really enjoy _perspective_. While one character might see something one way, another will see it a completely different way. 2) I hand wrote many of my notes and some of them were pretty sloppy.

4. I would love to talk with anyone who has questions regarding BotE or just wants to "fan girl" a little bit. Just send me a private message! And, yes, this includes a willingness to confirm if you've found any more of the subtle nuances I placed throughout the story.


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